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IE TEMPLE OF 




PHYSICAL, MORAL, AND INTELLECTUAL, 

FULL AND HARMONIOUS: 

THE ONLY SURE BASIS OF POPULAR LIBERTY. 



323 

^ THE 

FAMILY AID SCHOOL MONITOR, 

AND 

EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 



JAMES HENRY, JUN. 



LATE SUPERINTENDENT OF COMMON SCHOOLS IN H 
NEW YOKE. 



"KNOW THYSELF." 




" Creation is the normal school of all intelligences, and the history of the acts of the 
Divine Being furnish the whole course of study, and every lesson is only to teach us 
confidence in him." Gr. Moore. 

" All the happiness of man is derived from discovering, applying, or obeying the laws 
of his Creator, and all his misery is the result of ignorance or disobedience." 

Wayland. 

NEW YORK: ■ . 
GEORGE SAVAGE, 22 JOHN-STREET, 

(LATE HUNTINGTON & SAVAGE,) AND 

MASON AND LAW, 23 PARK ROW. 



DIRECTIONS FOR USING THIS WORK. 



Let the parent or teacher commence by asking his children or scholars the 
first question in the first chapter, and proceed in regular order to ask all the 
questions in that chapter, causing his children or scholars to read in concert, 
-with full and distinct articulation, the appropriate answer to each question, 
at its proper place. The definition of general education, and the definitions 
of physical, moral, intellectual, and special education, together with the 
effects of partial and complete education in the formation of character, ought 
to be accurately and thoroughly committed to memory. When this chapter 
has been well mastered in this way, let the attention of the learners be con- 
fined to the frontispiece, while the teacher repeats all the questions of the 
first chapter, causing the learners to give the right answer to each question 
from memory. 

Teachers will cause the selected articles in finer print, at the heads of the 
sections, in chapters second, third, and fourth, to be carefully read and well 
observed. With the questions and answers in each of the sections proceed 
as in chapter first. Continue to rejjeat this process until each section and 
each chapter is well understood. 

Chapter fifth is designed as a synthetical review of all the preceding chap- 
ters, showing how all the ideas, principles, and departments of education are 
combined in a really free and republican State. In this review constant 
reference must be made to the frontispiece, and the whole order of proceed- 
ing must be distinctly traced out by each learner. Continue this process 
until the whole subject-matter of this book has become so thoroughly known 
by the learners that they will readily give the right answer to each and 
every question by consulting the frontispiece alone. 

This book is well adapted for family and class reading, and may, with the 
best results, be made a part of the reading exercises of the higher classes in 
every school. 

The subject of each section may be made the basis of a written composition. 
By such a course, a practical knowledge of the fundamental laws of education 
would be acquired very much superior to what is now generally obtained. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, 

By GEORGE SAVAGE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 

District of New York. 



PREFACE, 



" And these words which I command this day, shalt be in thy 
heart ; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and 
thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when 
thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou 
risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, 
and they shall be as frontlets between thy eyes. And thou shalt 
write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates." 

Such was the general and perpetual educational injunction given 
by the immortal Hebrew Legislator to the parents of ancient Israel. 
Something analogous to it, both in principle and in form, is indis- 
pensably necessary to guide the policy of free and universal educa- 
tion, now firmly established in the United States, to a complete 
and successful accomplishment of its object. Parents, Teachers, 
School Officers, and Legislators must intelligently, harmoniously, 
and perseveringly co-operate, or education will be neither general 
nor effective. Essential unity of leading ideas is necessary to pro- 
duce such intelligent co-operation. 

A definition of General Education, which shall be recognized as 
a guide, both in families and schools, will secure the desired unity 
of leading ideas. Such a definition, to be valuable, must be com- 
prehensive and accurate ; to be practical, it must be brief, and to 
the point ; to be impressive, it must be striking and bold ; while, to 
be effective, it must be in harmony with the progressive tendency 
and spirit of the age. 

In the Family and School Monitor and Educational Catechism, 



Q PEEFACE. 

such a definition has been attempted. Fundamental principles are 
so represented as to please the eye, fix the attention, and impress 
the memory. They have been so arranged, that, while the pupil 
contemplates them separately, he may at the same time perceive 
how they necessarily unite in the formation of one symmetrical 
whole. 

Some educators confine their labors to the development of the 
bodily powers ; others, to the moral faculties ; while by far the 
greater number make the culture of the intellect the sole object of 
their care : thus practically evincing unconsciousness of the fact, 
that each individual, not of defective organization, possesses all 
these powers and faculties, and that it is the office of rational edu- 
cation to develop them all, in full and harmonious proportions. 

Two methods of representing the principles exhibited have been 
adopted : the one verbal, the other figurative, each defining and 
illustrating the other, both addressed to the eye, and through it ap- 
pealing with united influence to the feelings and reason. 

It is hoped and believed that these elementary essays will be 
found to be generally representative of that comprehensive system 
of education so plainly indicated by the founders and fathers of 
American Republicanism. That system regards the Bible as its 
Constitution, while it looks to the Universe for the body of the 
Law. It declares that an intelligent apprehension, by the under- 
standing both of the truths of Revelation and the truths of Nature, 
with strict obedience in the practical life to the requirements of 
both, can alone make us wise, both for time and for eternity. 



FAMILY AND SCHOOL MONITOR, 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM, 



CHAPTER I. 

SECTION I. 

" Man's character is formed by his ideas, and these are of three classes : 

1st. Those which he has in common with inferior creatures — the mere re- 
flex of nervous impression. 

2dly. Those that are purely human, rational, reflective, but limited to 
natural or physical objects. 

3dly. Those that are revealed and divine, and tending to bear the soul 
onward to futurity in consequence of Avhat it perceives as the moral necea- 
sity of its own existence." — G. 



Q. How large is the Chart of which a miniature is given as the fron- 
tispiece ? 

A. Forty-two inches long ; thirty-six inches wide. 

Q. What is the name of the Chart ? 

A. The Family and School Monitor. 

Q. Why was that name selected ? 



$ EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

A. To intimate that there is a near and inseparable re- 
lation between the family and school ; and, further, that 
the education of children can never be properly and suc- 
cessfully conducted, unless there be a constant, cordial, and 
intelligent co-operation between the family and school. 

Q. What is a Monitor ? 

A. It is either a person or a thing designed to remind 
others of what they ought to do, or ought not to do. 

Q. For what purpose is this Monitor intended ? 

A. To remind parents, teachers, and children of some 
of the principal things which ought to be known and prac- 
tically observed in the process of general education. 

Q. What is the first thing aimed at in this Monitor ? 
A. To make it pleasing to the sight. 

Q. Ought dwellings, school-houses, school-books, apparatus, play- 
grounds, &c, to be made pleasing to the sight? 

A. Certainly — order and beauty ought always to be 
exhibited in the architecture, color, divisions, and arrange- 
ments of all buildings designed for the residence and edu- 
cation of the young. School-books, maps, and charts ought 
always to be made of good and durable materials, and 
printed with beautiful and distinct type. The health and 
happiness of children are highly dependent upon the proper 
observance of these things. 

Q. How many ways is this Monitor to be read 1 

A. Two : first, verbally; second, figuratively. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 9 

Q. When read in the first manner, where do you begin ? 

A. At the top of the left-hand printed column. 

Q. When read figuratively, where do you begin 1 

A. At the bottom of the left-hand architectural column, 
and proceed across the Chart from left to right, and from 
the bottom towards the top. 

Q. What is Education % 

A. Education is that process by which the powers and 
faculties of an individual are duly and harmoniously de- 
veloped, and disciplined ; in which he acquires a thorough 
practical knowledge of individual, social, religious, and 
political duties, and an ability and disposition to perform 
them all, fully, accurately, and promptly. 

Q. What are the great departments of Education ? 

A. Physical, Moral, Intellectual, and Special. 

Q. What is Physical Education ? 

A. It is that process in which the bodily powers are 
duly developed and disciplined, in which the individual 
acquires physical health, activity, and beauty. 

Q. What is Moral Education ? 

A. It is that process by which the moral faculties are 
duly developed and disciplined, in which the individual is 
made to perceive clearly the distinctions of right and 
wrong — good and evil — in his actions with regard to oth- 
ers and himself; and in which he acquires the disposition 
to do what is Eight and to avoid what is Wrong. 



10 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. What is Intellectual Education ? 

A. It is that process by which the knowing and reason- 
ing faculties of an individual are duly developed and disci- 
plined ; in which he acquires a knowledge of the existence, 
relations, and reason of things. 

Q. What is Special Education ? 

A. It is that process by which an individual acquires a 
thorough practical knowledge of some department of labor. 

Q. What do the first three departments constitute ? 

A. General education, which of right belongs to every 
citizen of a republican State, and for which legal, full, and 
adequate provision ought to be made by the State. 

Q. Where is general education acquired ? 

A. In the family and school. 

Q. Where is special education acquired ? 

A. In the office, in the store, on the farm, in the 
shop, <fec. 

Q. What do the three printed spaces between the pictorial columns 
represent ? 

A. The three great departments in general education. 

Q. What are the names of those departments ? 

A. Physical, Moral, and Intellectual. 

Q. Why are those departments equal in size and prominence ? 

A. To indicate their equal importance, and that the 
process of education must be so conducted that the balance 
of the powers and faculties shall be duly preserved. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. H 

Q. Why is the Physical first named ? 

A. Because, in the Creator's arrangements bodies have 
been made the first objects of the educator's care ; and, 
also, because it is through the physical organs that the 
soul first reveals itself in Sensation. 

Q. Why is the Moral next named 1 

A. Because, in the process of education, children are re- 
quired to notice and observe distinctions of Right and 
Wrong — Good and Evil — long before they can understand 
the reasons on which those distinctions are founded. The 
moral faculties are, also, the organs of the affections, and 
through them the soul next develops itself in Feeling. 
And, further, as in the order of the Creator, so in the edu- 
cation and character of man, power and intelligence ought 
always to be rendered the servants and ministers of justice 
and love. 

Q. Why is the Intellectual last named r i 

A. Because, it is through the intellectual faculties that 
the soul manifests itself in the third place, in act of 
Thought. Sensation, Feeling, Thought, are the primary 
stages of the soul's manifestation. 

Q. Are the departments of the human powers and faculties independ- 
ent of each other 1 

A. Not absolutely. ~No one department can be devel- 
oped perfectly, without regard to the others. Health, mo- 
rality, and intellect have strong and recij)rocal influences 
upon each other, so that the perfection of each will essen- 



12 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

tially depend upon the harmonious activity of all. Still, 
each department may, to a great extent, be developed in- 
dependently. 

Q. What result will be produced if education be restricted to the 
physical powers ? 

A. A merely animal life will be exhibited. 

Q. What will be the character of persons whose education is so 
restricted ? 

A. Such persons, if employed in manual labor, will 
have little ability and less inclination for moral and intel- 
lectual culture. When wealthy, they will be in imminent 
danger of being enslaved by their animal appetites. 

Q. When education is restricted to the first and second departments, 
or, when health is combined with morality, what will be the character 
of such persons'? 

A. They will be honest and affectionate, faithful in the 
performance of what they regard as their duties, and trust- 
worthy as neighbors and friends. They will, however, be 
incapable of self-direction, and therefore incompetent for 
self-control. Always ignorant and often superstitious, such 
persons are necessarily instruments in the hands of the 
intelligent and designing, for the accomplishment of their 
purposes. 

Q. When the first and third departments are united, or, when health 
is combined with intellect, what will be the character ? 

A. Such persons are often sagacious and efficient in 
action, but wholly unscrupulous with regard to the means 
they employ to attain their ends. Power and intelligence, 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 13 

uncontrolled by justice and love, constitute the most wicked 
and dangerous characters known in history. 

Q. When the second and third departments are united, or, when moral- 
ity and intellect are combined, what will be the character ? 

A. Such persons will be honest, benevolent, and intelli- 
gent ; weak, nervous, and easily excited ; generally unhappy 
in their thoughts, and incapable of labor. Such persons 
often die young. 

Q. When all three departments are properly united, or, when health, 
morality, and intellect are duly and harmoniously developed and dis- 
ciplined, what will be the character ? 

A. Such persons will possess sound minds in sound 
bodies : they will be eminently happy in themselves, and 
capable of the most extensive and permanent usefulness to 
mankind. Such a character is the most honorable and 
desirable possession for man, and it is the imperative duty 
of all to strive faithfully and perseveringly for its attain- 
ment. 

Q. Whose character among the moderns does the great majority of 
enlightened men pronounce most perfect ? 

A. Washington's. 

Q. Will you give a brief description of his character — physical, moral, 
and intellectual ? 

A. He was more than six feet in height, and well pro- 
portioned. He possessed a strength of nerve and power of 
muscle which defied physical hardship of every descrip- 
tion. He was a swift runner, an expert wrestler, and the 



14 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

most accomplished horseman of his age. His integrity 
was not only unimpeachable, but beyond suspicion. His 
love and veneration of Truth, if not unequaled, were cer- 
tainly unsurpassed. Mr. Jefferson declares that his justice 
was the most stern and inflexible he had ever known, and 
also that he was incapable of fear. His intellect was clear, 
strong, and penetrating. His judgment solid and unerring. 
His caution so great, that he never said or did a thing to- 
day, which he wished unsaid or undone to-morrow. His 
self-control was absolute. It was this rare combination of 
excellences which made him "first in peace, first in 

WAR, AND FIRST IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN." 



CHAPTEE II. 

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

LAW: 
ITS UNIVERSALITY, UNIFORMITY, AND INFLUENCE. 

" Of law, no less can be said than that her seat is the bosom of God, her 
voice the harmony of the world. All creatures in heaven and in earth pay 
her homage ; the least as feeling her care, the greatest as not exempt from 
her power." Hooker. 

" Law governs the sun, the planets, and the stars. Law covers the earth 
with beauty, and fills it with bounty. Law directs the light, moves the 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 15 

wings of the atmosphere ; binds the forces of the universe in harmony and 
order, awakes the melody of creation, quickens every sensation of delight, 
moulds every form of life. Law governs atoms and governs systems. Law 
governs matter and governs thought. Law springs from the mind of God, 
travels through creation, and makes all things one. It makes all material 
forms one in the unity of system ; it makes all minds one in the unity of 
thought and love." Tappan. 



Q. What is general education ? 

A. It is that process by which all the powers and facul- 
ties of an individnal are duly and harmoniously developed 
and disciplined, in which a thorough, practical knowledge 
is acquired of individual, social, religious, and political 
duties, and an ability and disposition to perform them all 
fully, accurately, and promptly. 

Q. What is the first object of general education 1 

A. To make the body healthy, active, and beautiful. 

Q. What is the second object ? 

A. To make the heart honest, true, and warm. 

Q. What is the third object? 

A. To make the head cool, clear, and intelligent. 

Q. How can these great objects be attained ? 

A. Only by an accurate knowledge of the Creator's laws 
which regulate and govern every department of our being, 
physical, moral, and intellectual ; and by a prompt and 
cheerful obedience to their sacred requirements. 



±Q EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

SECTION II. 
THE ATMOSPHERE. 

" And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed 
into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living soul? 

" Four-fifths of the atmosphere consists of nitrogen ; but it does not appear 
that we have the power of withdrawing any of this by breathing, so that it 
shall become a part of our substance. It is the oxygen only that chemically 
acts on our blood in respiration. Thus we see that we are really kept alive 
by the air, in two ways : one, through the direct process in breathing, by 
which the oxygen acts on all the body ; and another indirectly through the 
nitrogen, which is withdrawn from the atmosphere by vegetables, to form 
our food. Thus our bodies are formed out of the earth and air, and kept 
alive by a power that subdues all the forces of the elements for a while to 
our use, so that they shall minister to the production and support of each 
individual body in a fixed manner ; and then, by some alteration in the 
balance of forces, be the means of again resolving that body into dead 
matter. 

" To breathe air deprived of oxygen, or containing it in such combination as 
will not allow its proper action on the blood, or to breathe air containing any 
thing which prevents the healthy changes of the blood, is to breathe death." 

G-. Moore. 



Q. What is the first rule of Physical Education ? 
A. I must know accurately and observe strictly my rela- 
tions to the atmosphere. 

Q. Are those relations important ? 

A. The most important of all physical relations. All 
the varieties of vegetable and animal life are constantly 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. If 

dependent upon the action of the atmosphere for their 
continuation. 

Q. Separated from the atmosphere, how long could a human being 
live? 

A. Not more than four minutes. 

Q. What effect is the atmosphere constantly producing in a human 



A. It is continually changing and renovating the whole 
mass of the blood. 

Q. What portion of the human being is blood? 

A. In a state of health, the blood is nearly one-sixth part 
of the whole weight. 

Q. How many motions has the blood? 

A. Two : one from the heart, through arteries and capil- 
laries of the body, to the extremities of the system; an- 
other from the extremities, through the veins and capillaries 
of the lungs, back to the heart. 

Q. How rapidly does the blood flow? 

A. So rapidly that, in a healthy state, the entire mass 
passes through the lungs of the human adult in less than 
three minutes. 

Q. How many gallons of blood pass through the lungs of the healthy 
human adult in one hour ? 

A. Sixty-five, and a fraction. 

Q. What quantity of air is required to renew such a mass of blood ? 

A, One hundred and two gallons. 



IS EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. What quantities of blood and air act upon each other in the lungs 
of the healthy human adult, in twenty-four hours? 

A. About twenty-four hogsheads of venous blood, and 
fifty-seven hogsheads of air. 

Q. How often does a healthy man, in a tranquil state, with a pulse at 
seventy-two, breathe in one minute"? 

A. Twenty times. 

Q. How much air passes into the lungs at every full breath ? 

A. For every full breath a pint of fresh air is diffused 
over about fifteen square feet of the mucous surface of the 
air-tubes and air-cells of the lungs. 

Q. What one word describes the process of renovating the blood by 
the action of the air? 

A. Respiration. A perfect respiration is indispensably 
necessary to the possession of sound health. 

Q. What is the first requisite of a perfect respiration ? 

A. An erect carriage of the body. Whether sitting or 
standing, keep the body erect and the shoulders back. 
Parents and teachers ought to train their children and 
pupils, until an erect carriage of the body is as firmly es- 
tablished among them as it always has been among the 
]STorth American Indians. 

Q. What is the second requisite of a perfect respiration? 

A. A loose dress : for the lungs may be more compress- 
ed, and the general circulation of the blood more impeded 
by a tight dress, than by a stooping carriage of the body. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 19 

Q. What is the third requisite of a perfect respiration 1 

A. Thorough ventilation of all edifices and rooms, espe- 
cially bed-rooms. Much improvement with regard to ven- 
tilation has been made within a few years past, but the 
good work is but just begun. The atmosphere in many 
dwellings, school-houses, and other edifices, is now almost 
actively poisonous. 

Q. What is the fourth requisite for a perfect respiration ? 

A. That, in all suitable states of the weather, not less 
than three hours each day shall be spent in free, cheerful, 
and somewhat brisk exercises in the pure open air. 

(See Cutter's Physiology, from page 156 to 179; Mayhew's Popular 
Education, 81 to 111; Moore's Body and Mind, 12, 14; Moore's 
Health and Disease, 69, 291, 320; Spurzheim's Education, 69 
and 70 ; Humphrey, Domestic Education.) 



SECTION II. 

LIGHT. 



"Action, life, feeling, thought, are all associated -with light. Ere it flew 
forth like a pervading spirit, obedient to the word of God, this earth was 
unadorned, unfurnished, lifeless ; but wherever light has penetrated, there also 
beauty and order, will and mind, are manifested through .all the variety of 
appropriate organizations. The Promethean torch has quickened the cold 
marble ; but man, without the continued emanation from a purer world, 
would yet find his icy tomb in this, hopeless of a resurrection. The link with 
heaven is unbroken ; light still binds all worlds together, and its magnetic 
might reaches and rules the granite framework of our earth, awakening har- 



20 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

mony more mysterious than that of Memnon's statue. Every color and every 
shape of visible creation discourses to man's spirit of an embracing, informing, 
vivifying power, which can only be shadowed forth by the sun, and of whose 
nature and benevolence light is but as the written name. 

"The action of light on health is less observed, though not less important, 
than that of other agencies which constantly act upon us. This is best 
evinced in the vital depression, morbid sensibility, nervousness, and impover- 
ishment of blood which the protracted exclusion of light from the body almost 
invariably induces. All who are blessed with sight must feel the animating 
power of the brilliant day upon the mind ; but we may well suppose that the 
benevolence of the Creator toward ourselves is not limited in this respect to 
our ability to see, and it is beyond question that color acts upon the body 
irrespectively of its effects upon the mind ; it exists not merely to please the 
eye, but it exerts a direct influence on chemistry and life. Each ray of the 
spectrum, each color beaming from the clouds, influences vital organism in a 
manner peculiar to itself. It is no chance-work that the sunshine is scattered 
and diffused, and melted into the sky ; it is no chance-work that the infinite 
heavens are spread out before our gaze like a blue ocean, ever attracting the 
eye and never fatiguing it ; it is no chance-work that ' rosy red, love's proper 
hue,' is apt to mingle with shadowings of glory, morning and evening, in the 
eastern and western sky ; it is no chance-work that each season smiles with a 
peculiar brilliance as it greets and blesses this living earth." p Moor 



Q. What is the second rule of Physical Education ? 

A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the laws 
which regulate and govern my relations to light. 

Q. What are the general effects of light upon organized bodies ? 

A. Light changes the color of plants and animals, and 
the complexion of man. Plants kept in darkness grow 
pale and yellow ; worms and insects confined to dark 
places remain white. Persons who spend their lives in 
their closets have pale and yellowish complexions. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 21 

Q. What sensations are produced by light ? 

A. Light awakes us from sleep ; it excites all functions 
of the body, particularly those of the skin. Its sudden 
impression produces sternutation, or sneezing. 

Q. How is the general health of the body affected by deficiency of 
light ? 

A. The whole organization, being deprived of light, 
grows weak and fat. It is affected with scurvy or putrid 
complaints, and the liver enlarges. Hence dark habita- 
tions, narrow streets, high houses, little windows, and 
whatever shuts out light from dwelling-places, are always 
unwholesome. 

Q. What effects upon health are produced by excess of light ? 

A. Excess of light produces headache, inflammation of 
the eyes, of the skin, of the throat, and of the brain. 
Hence the proper regulation of light, both in regard to 
quantity and quality, is a matter of the highest importance. 

Q. Wherein does sunlight differ from lamplight ? 

A. Sunlight is composed of eight red, five yellow, and 
three blue rays ; lamplight is composed of five red, three 
yellow, and eight blue rays. 

Q. Which is most conducive to health, sunlight or lamplight % 
A. Sunlight. As far as possible, therefore, all labor 
ought to be performed in the oj)en light of day. 

Q. What properties of bodies are revealed by light? 
A. Form, size, and color. 



22 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. What effect has light upon morals and intellect? 
A. They are both determined, in a great measure, "by 
the relation of onr minds to light, and the character of our 
enjoyments in regard to color. 

(See Cutter's Physiology, 57; Moore's Body and Mind, 136 to 147; 
Moore's Health and Disease, 178 to 183; Spurzheim's Educa- 
cation, 70 to 71.) 



SECTION III. 

TEMPERATURE. 



" Since heat, magnetism, electricity, light, and nervous energy are proved 
to be intimately related to each other, we need no longer wonder that the 
sun should appear to be the fountain of all animation to this earth. The 
consideration of the effects of light on the human being involves also that of 
the influences which light seems to call into action ; the chief of which, as 
regards its manifest operation on vital development, is caloric, or that which 
causes the sensation of heat. The Almighty regulates all nature by the 
combination of opposing forces ; and as attraction gives origin to form and 
density, so heat, acting as the divellent force, imparts to bodies a tendency 
to expand. It is, therefore-, essential to fluidity and motion, which sufficiently 
demonstrates its importance in every thing appertaining to life. 

" From the icy home of the Esquimaux to that of the savage that burrows 
in the sands of Sahara, we find man everywhere exhibiting habits and 
characteristics in a great degree derived from the peculiarities of his position 
with regard to warmth. Man, however, does not thrive simply as an animal. 
His physical frame may grow to perfection amid the general luxuriance of 
vegetable and animal life in a burning clime, provided water burst from the 
rock, or distill from heaven ; but still he is intellectually a dwarf, unless 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 23 

intelligence combine with his necessities to enlarge his thoughts and stimu- 
late his exertions. "Where the very sun -which enlightens him at the same 
time excites his blood with a fervency that unfits him for tranquil reflection, 
and exalts his passions while depressing the springs of mental vigor, of course 
the tide of natural tendency must ever be toward vice and degradation, 
not because vice springs from sunshine, but because the human heart inherits 
evil dispositions, and therefore, unless restrained by religious conviction, 
always, and as a matter of course, takes advantage of every opportunity to 
indulge its selfish license. 

" Knowing the nature of our dependence on the state of the brain and of 
the blood, we might determine the locality most favorable to mental and 
moral development ; and no one could doubt the probability of finding, 
what we find, in fact, that in the temperate zone man would appear in the 
highest state of intellectual cultivation." G. Moore 



Q. What is the third rule of Physical Education % 

A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the laws 
which regulate and govern my relations to temperature. 

Q. What is meant by temperature ? 

A. The degrees of heat and cold which exist in all 
bodies. 

Q. In a healthy state, what is the temperature of the adult human 
body? 

A. About ninety-eight degrees Fahrenheit. 

Q. What is the usual temperature of the atmosphere in the temperate 
zones ? 

A. Almost invariably many degrees below that of the 
human body ; consequently, the body is by far the greater 
portion of time imparting heat to the atmosphere. 

Q. What temperature of the atmosphere is most conducive to health? 



24 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

A. From sixty-five to seventy degrees. Thermometers 
ought to be constantly used in all rooms artificially warmed, 
and the temperature should not be allowed to sink below 
sixty-five, nor to rise much above seventy degrees. 

Q. Does the healthy human body remain at nearly the same tempera- 
ture under all circumstances ? 

A. It is well known that in the polar regions and in the 
torrid zone, under every variety of circumstances, the 
human body is at nearly the same temperature, however 
different may be that of the air by which it is surrounded. 

Q. How is this equal temperature preserved ? 

A. By the evaporation of fluids from the skin and lungs. 

Q. What would have been the condition of our race, deprived of this 
uniformity of temperature ? 

A. Without this power of adaptation, it is obvious that 
man must have been confined to the climate which gave 
him birth, and also to have suffered constantly from the 
change of seasons; whereas, by possessing it, he can retain 
life in a temperature sufficiently cold to freeze mercury, 
and sustain, unharmed, for a time, a degree of heat more 
than sufficient to boil water, or even to bake meat. 

Q. Are sudden and great changes of temperature dangerous to 
health 2 

A. They are always so ; still they are unavoidable, and 
must therefore be provided against. 

Q. On passing from a high to a low temperature, what general rule 
ought to be observed 1 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 25 

A. Accelerate the muscular action, and increase the 
clothing. 

(See Cutter's Physiology, 42 and 43; Spurzheim's Education, 63 to 65. 



SECTION IY. 

ALIMENT. 



" The different temperaments demand very different regimens, and, there- 
fore, a few words may be properly devoted to what is appropriate to each. 
The phlegmatic or lymphatic constitution is connected with extensive and 
powerful digestive organs, and therefore the danger is from inordinate appe- 
tite. It demands moderate stimulation, steady exercise, brief sleep, occa- 
sional fasting, little drink, and strong food. The choleric (bilious or fibrous) 
man has too active a heart ; he should aim at obtaining bland blood and a 
quiet state of the nerves. Substances that irritate the stomach and excite 
the heart cause such characters to become outrageous ; and if they indulge 
in the abundant use of animal food, stimulant liquors, and spices, it is as well 
to reason with a whirlwind or a drunkard as to persuade them against their 
inclination. They must, then, be treated like madmen, for nothing will check 
the intensity raging within them but forcible restraint, abstinence, and soli- 
tude. The sanguine man is hurried on by the warmth and fullness of his 
heart to form attachments and to make promises which prudence and provi- 
dence forbid him to fulfill ; hence he is regarded as inconstant and inconsist- 
ent, for his errors are not always looked on with the charitable indulgence 
with which he regards those of others. He requires especial management, 
for he is in the greater danger because ' his failings lean to virtue's side.' 
The regimen of the choleric man is not inappropriate to him, for although he 
is sometimes highly elated, and at other times equally dejected, his charac- 
teristic is want of self-control. Therefore extreme moderation, using only 



90 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

three meals a day, without stimulants, is best for him. He needs a keeper, 
and a wise friend is essential to his safety ; therefore let him deserve to ob- 
tain one. Happily, this kind improves by time and experience. Probably 
the diet and discipline of a well-conducted union-house would not be amiss 
to such a temperament, for his flighty hopes would have their wings clipped, 
his appetences would be restrained, and affectionate fits and wayward im- 
pulses be checked by the magnetic touch of a charity sufficiently cold and 
decided. Steady employment, enforced regularity, a proper attachment, 
will be more useful to the sanguine youth than any strictness of dietary. 
The nervous have a predominance of brain. They should seek society, and 
employ themselves among the beautiful varieties of nature, not merely for 
the treasuring up of thoughts, but for the improvement of their senses and 
the development of their muscles. Their blood is apt to be disordered, be- 
cause their digestive functions suffer from the exhaustion of the nerves, in- 
duced by study and excessive sensibility ; therefore their diet should be 
light and moderate, and every thing should be done with a view to preserv- 
ing the proper balance between thought and action, muscle and mind. The 
nervous, the melancholic, and the bilious, are near akin to each other, and 
are often met with in the same person, as a confirmed dyspeptic, or still 
more miserable hypochondriac. In such, the whole being is alive to pain. 
All the universe seems inconvenient to the melancholy man, and whether 
his gloomy sensibility arise from a morbid body or a mistaken view of Divine 
Providence, his self-complacency is alike disturbed, and he feels his individ- 
uality not as faith dictates, but as his senses inform him, so that he is op- 
pressed by the weight of his own helplessness, instead of casting himself, 
with all his cares, upon the Almighty. Every man is liable to this worst of 
all maladies, when his body fails, or he has unnaturally limited his attention; 
and the only remedy for it is found in the drawing out of the affections, so 
as to induce bodily activity, or in that assurance of soul which looks for suffi- 
ciency only in Him who brought each of us into existence for his own good 
pleasure, and orders our circumstances so as ultimately to prove that Om- 
nipotence cannot be unkind. The will that is not resigned to God is always 
impatient of impediment, because it knows no law above itself; so that, after 
all, the end of our argument is the same as the beginning — namely, that 
true happiness or health of soul is simply what, in the New Testament, is 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 27 

called salvation, and which is begun in every spirit that can look forward 
with a steadfast eye, and say, Thy will be done. 

" Although the process of digestion does not depend on the brain — for a 
creature without a brain may digest well — yet a painful state of mind dis- 
orders every function of the body. It therefore is of the highest importance 
to remember, that mental perturbations as effectually deteriorate the blood 
as do the more palpable agents which surround us when unduly brought to 
bear upon it. 

" We must bear in mind that every organ of the body contains, in various 
proportions, the same elements ; as fibrin, albumen, casein. These substances, 
wherever found, are stated to be essentially the same in composition, and 
differ only in integral arrangement and their respective proportion of salts. 
The purest specimens of these substances are the fiber of flesh or blood 
(fibrin), the white of egg (albumen), the cheese of milk (casein). With the 
addition of water, and under the influence of life, these substances may all 
be quite converted into blood and flesh. They all contain nitrogen, hydro- 
gen, oxygen, and carbon, combined with phosphorus, sulphur, salts, <fec. No 
organ of the body contains less than 1*7 per cent, of nitrogen, which is ex- 
actly the proportion of this element in the fibrin of the blood. 

" Every organ, and every component part of an organ, demand their own 
especial food, for every peculiarity of structure is accompanied by a peculiar 
modification of the essential elements which enter into its formation, for spe- 
cific purposes in relation to life ; thus the chemical composition of the liver 
differs from that of the kidneys, and so forth. It is therefore important that 
the choice of food, as well as the amount of our exertions, should be made 
according to their state at any time, and also according to the general state 
of the whole with regard to habit or temperament. The food that suits the 
nervous man rarely agrees with the sanguine, and a person of bilious habit 
or irascible temper may be almost poisoned by a diet that would but im- 
prove and invigorate a lax and lymphatic body. 

" The influence of diet on the moral and intellectual character of children 
has been extensively observed, because they present the best opportunity 
of witnessing the direct effects of bodily condition on temper, their feelings 
being undisguised. Of course, as their bodies are in process of formation, 
their mental habits are also forming ; and it is of vast importance that this 



28 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

subject should be well understood. It is, however, unfortunately, but little 
regarded in general, and education is conducted more frequently as a plan 
by which the mind may be forced into any shape by fear, than as a matter 
the success of which will be proportioned to the care with which the body 
is treated and the faculties encouraged, according to physical fitness for 
mental enjoyment. The work of mental improvement should commence by 
improving the body. Let the soul be happy in its home, and it will soon 
expatiate amid ever-varying ideas, and be ready to sympathize with all 
those who will lead it out to contemplate and enjoy the facts of creation 
and of history. This is the whole mystery of education. It has been proved 
by comparison among large numbers of children, that those brought up in 
poverty and privation, having of course a bad physical condition, are much 
more torpid in intellect and irritable in temper, than children of the same 
age who have been better fed and cared for." G. Moore. 



Q. What is the fourth rule of Physical Education ? 
A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the laws 
which regulate and govern my relations to aliment. 

Q. What do you understand by aliment ? 

A. Aliment, or food, is the substance by which the growth 
and waste of the body is supplied. 

Q. W T hat are the things most important to be known and observed 
with regard to aliment ? 

A. They are, its material, quantity, quality, variety, 
cooking, consistence, temperature, times and manner of 
reception. 

Q. What are proper materials for aliment ? 

A. Physiologists have very generally agreed that the 
proper material for the food of man is a mixture of vege- 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 29 

table and animal substances, the former preponderating in 
high and the latter in low temperatures. Vegetable ali- 
ment should increase as we approach the tropics ; animal 
should augment as we approach the polar regions. Meat 
should be eaten more freely in the fall and winter, and 
vegetables in the spring and summer. 

Q. What rule should be observed with regard to the quality of 
aliment % 

A. The best quality both of animal and vegetable mat- 
ter should be invariably selected for food. Health is always 
imminently endangered by the use of stale and deteriorated 
provisions. Individuals and the public cannot guard too 
vigilantly against this common and great source of evil. 

Q. What rule ought to be observed with regard to quantity of food % 
A. The quantity of food should be regulated by the 
demands of growth and waste. Children and youth, who 
require food for both growth and waste, ought to eat oftener 
and proportionately more than adults, who eat for the sim- 
ple purpose of supplying waste. Again, the quantity of 
food is greatly modified by the kind and degree of exercise. 
Persons spending their time chiefly in active muscular 
exercise in the open air, require much more food than those 
who spend most of their time in quiet, sedentary occupa- 
tions. Eat not to satiety, however, is a general rule appli- 
cable to all persons. 

Q. Respecting variety of aliment, what rule ought to be observed 1 
A. As far as chemical analysis has been extended, fifty- 



30 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

five elements only enter into the composition of matter, and 
of these about one-third is found in the human body. This 
fact alone indicates that variety in aliment is necessary. 
The Bible directs man to appropriate freely of both vege- 
table and animal material for his food. Unvarying uni- 
formity of diet is also known by experiment to be incom- 
patible with the highest state of health, both of body and 
mind. 

Q. What are the ultimate chemical ingredients, irrespective of salts, 
into which all matter, vegetable and animal, proper for the food of man, 
may be resolved? 

A. They are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. 
Q. What is cooking ? 

A. It implies both the science and art employed in 
preparing the materials of food for reception into the 
stomach. 

Q. Is cooking an important process? 

A. Highly so. The preparation of food is perhaps as 
important as the selection of its materials, since articles the 
most nutritious and appropriate may be rendered unfit for 
the stomach by the ignorance of the cook ; and those 
alimentary substances the least promising may, by culi- 
nary skill, be so combined and prepared as to be both 
digestible and wholesome. 

Q. Ought food to be eaten at high or low temperatures ? 
A. Aliment should be taken moderately warm. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 31 

Q. With regard to the consistence of aliment, what rule should be 

observed ? 

A. Aliment may be too concentrated, as in pastry and 
jellies ; or too diffused, as in soups and other forms. 

Q. What is the proper solvent for food? 

A. Pure water is the only solvent ; it is the only liquid 
necessary to life and health. 

Q. What quantity of water ought to be drunk in a day ?. 

A. This will depend upon circumstances. A strong man 
fully employed will require from three to four pints of 
drink a day in dry weather. 

Q. Can a man be intemperate in the use of water as well as other 
drinks ? 

A. Every drojD of water more than enough for digestion 
increases the demand upon the vital energy, and facilitates 
waste of the body. 

Q. How much liquid is proper to be taken during a meal ? 
A. ~No more than will be sufficient to facilitate proper 
mastication. 

Q. What evils result from a free use of warm drinks at meals 1 

A. Those who indulge largely in warm drinks, especially 
strong tea and coffee, are peculiarly liable to disorders of 
the stomach, and to all those anomalous nervous distresses 
and excitements which arise from impure blood. 

Q. What rule ought to be observed with regard to tea and coffee ? 

A. Opinions with regard to the use of tea and coffee are 



32 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

conflicting. Numerous authorities, however, and of the 
highest respectability, may be cited to show that their 
moderate use, if not too strong and too warm, is conducive 
to clearness and activity of the brain, and not unfavorable 
to health. 

Q. What rule ought to be adopted with regard to the use of ardent 
spirits and other intoxicating drinks ? 

A. They ought to be used only as medicines, under the 
particular direction and supervision of well-informed and 
temperate physicians. As a common beverage in the fam- 
ily and social circle, intoxicating liquors are the source of 
unequaled wretchedness, suffering, and crime. 

Q. What are the most proper hours for eating? 

A. The same hours for all persons, irrespective of cir- 
cumstances, cannot be adopted. Persons of different occu- 
pations will be best suited with different hours. Uniform 
hours for the same persons, however, are matters of con- 
venience and importance. Intervals between meals ought 
to be of sufficient duration to allow of perfect digestion, and 
also to give the stomach adequate time for rest. All per- 
sons ought to have established hours for meals, and no in- 
termediate eating of any thing ought to be indulged in : 
the practice of eating cakes, fruit, nuts, candies, and con- 
fectionery, at all hours, now so common, especially with 
children and young persons, is actively destructive of both 
health and temper, and cannot be too early nor too strictly 
prohibited. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 33 

Q. Ought meals to be eaten immediately before or immediately after 
active and long-continued exercise 1 

A. Neither : periods of repose, or of very moderate exer- 
tion, ought to precede and succeed each meal. 

Q. In what manner ought aliment to be taken ? 

A. With sufficient slowness to allow thorough mastica- 
tion and insalivation. The rapid and inordinate eating 
now so prevalent in the United States is a cause of incon- 
ceivable disease and misery. If some reformer could in- 
duce our people to observe temperance at the table, to 
take more. time for the reception of their meals, and to fol- 
low them with seasons of light, cheerful, and even mirthful 
conversation, he would be entitled to the honors of a public 
benefactor. 

Q. Ought full meals to be taken immediately before retiring for sleep? 

A. Never. Intervals of not less than three hours ought 
always to separate full meals from sleep. A fully distended 
stomach, and sweet, refreshing sleep, are physical impossi- 
bilities. Nightmare, suffocation, and apoplexy have more 
than a fortuitous relationship to late oyster-suppers, lobster- 
salads, and bountiful potations of champagne. 

Q. Does aliment influence the action of the moral and intellectual 
faculties 1 

A. " A strict regard to the choice of food and drink is 
certainly among the most direct means conducive to purity 
of blood, and therefore the regulation of appetite is among 
the chief of our daily duties, and the due management of 



oi EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

the stomach is a large part of morality. The comfort and 
efficiency, intellect, nay, the moral perception, manliness, 
and virtue of the mind depend greatly on our use of ali- 
ment; and in the very means by which we sustain the 
strength of the body, or most directly disorder its functions, 
we at the same time either fortify or disable the brain, so 
that we shall be qualified to use our faculties with advan- 
tage, or else, amid the confusion of our sensations, be ren- 
dered incapable of rational attention." 

(See Cutter's Physiology, 144 to 149; Moore's Body and Mind, 236 
to 257 ; Moore's Health and Disease, 95, 132, 161 ; Spurzheim's 
Education, 65 to 69.) 



SECTION V. 

CLOTHIXG. 



appearance, alas ! is generally more regarded than health in the con- 
struction and the materials of our garments ; but health and elegance ought 
to be alike studied. I would by no means discourage an attention to taste 
in dress, since the cultivation of a sense of beauty, or of the becoming, even 
in the form and color of habiliments, besides affording domestic and social 
occupation, is not without a moral influence, and may contribute largely to 
our health by promoting our happiness and aiding to preserve our character 
and consistency. Disregard to such considerations can occur only in minds 
that depreciate the forms and colors with which the God of nature has beau- 
tified and animated the world, that souls should influence each other. On 
the ground of beauty and its effects in cheering the heart, and, when properly 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 35 

appreciated, of improving the understanding also, I would denounce the un- 
natural horrors and deformities produced by an abuse of stays." 

G. Moore. 



Q. What is the fifth rule of Physical Education ? 
A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the laws 
which regulate and govern my relations to clothing. 

Q. What are the most important things to which attention ought to 
be given with regard to clothing ? 

A. They are its material, texture, fitting, change, quan- 
tity, color, and cost. 

Q. Will you name the more common materials of clothing, beginning 
with that most conducive to health % 
'A. Furs, wool, silk, cotton, flax, and india-rubber cloth. 

Q. What ought to be the texture of clothing ? 

A. Neither very coarse nor fine. Both material and 
texture ought to be durable and well adapted to preserve 
a proper and equable temperature of the body, and at the 
same time favor the free action of the air upon the skin. 

Q. What rule should be observed in fitting clothing to the person ? 

A. Perfection of adaptation is attained only when the 
symmetry and beauty of the person are fully preserved, 
and at the same time imposing the least possible restraint 
upon the free action of the muscles and limbs. 

Q. What evils are produced by clothing unduly tight ? 
A. Health and beauty are both destroyed by it. 



36 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. Name with more particularity the dangers of tight dresses for the 
neck. 

A. Tight collars, stocks, and ribbons have often suddenly 
destroyed life by preventing the return of blood from the 
head. 

Q. What injuries have resulted from the abuse of stays and other 
forms of compressing the chest ? 

A. The heart, lungs, liver, bowels, and even the very 
bones of the back and chest, and, by implicated action, the 
bones of the whole system, become distorted and diseased 
by tight lacing. 

Q. What evils result from tight sleeves, stockings, &c. ? 

A. The circulation of the blood in the veins will be in- 
terrupted, and swelling of the limbs will ensue. 

Q. What evils are caused by tight boots and shoes ? 

A. Cold feet, corns, bunions, and distortion of the bones 
and muscles. 

Q. What rule ought to govern the changes of clothing ? 

A. The preservation of health requires that uniformity of 
clothing should be generally preserved. Exposure to colds 
is necessarily consequent upon even slight variations in 
either the apparel or bedding. The omission of a collar, 
cravat, stock, and even a neck-ribbon, for a few minutes 
only, has not unfrequently been followed by severe colds. 
Exchanging boots for slippers, in the evening, is a frequent 
cause of colds, and over-shoes probably cause more evils 
than they prevent. The foot and ankle are peculiarly vul 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 37 

nerable to colds, and uniformity in their clothing cannot 
be too carefully observed. 

Q. At what time in the day ought changes of clothing, from thick to 
thin, to be made ? 

A. In the morning, when the system is most vigorous 
and best prepared to resist the ill effects of change. 

Q. What rules ought to be observed with regard to the quantity of 
clothing ? 

A. ~No precise rules with regard to quantity can be 
given. Age, temperament, custom, and the state of health, 
all modify the quantity of clothing. As a general rule, 
however, the proper temperature of the body ought to be 
preserved by aliment and exercise, rather than by the 
quantity of clothing. 

Q. Is the color of clothing a matter of importance % 

A. To a much greater degree than is generally supposed. 
Temperature is modified by color. Besides, color always, 
in a greater or less degree, affects the nervous system, and 
through it the moral feelings. Nothing more truly indi- 
cates correct taste than the proper blending of colors. 
" Orange with blue in all its shades, lilac with yellow, 
red with green, every lady of taste knows harmonize well 
together, when neatly arranged ; but if she wear a dress of 
one predominant color, she will take care that it be sub- 
dued and somewhat dull." 

Q. What rules ought to be observed with regard to expenditures for 
clothing ? 



38 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

A. Every person requires what, in military phrase, would 
be denominated a fatigue and parade dress, and each of 
these dresses must be sufficiently extended to admit of all 
those changes which health and propriety require. Black 
being always in fashion, and the established color for 
mourning in this country, would on these accounts be the 
preferable color for parade dress for persons whose means 
of expenditure are limited, and to whom economy is a 
necessity as well as virtue. The color of the fatigue dress 
might very properly be gray, or a mixture of blue or black 
and white. There would be also a further good economy 
in preserving the chosen color for each dress uniform 
through a long series of years, as by such an arrangement 
provisions for repairs are easily and cheaply made. In the 
manufacture of the small arms of the United States, each 
description of arms being of the same model and the same 
number of pieces, the opposite parts in two muskets, for in- 
stance, being destroyed, a single perfect musket may readily 
be constructed by uniting the sound parts remaining of the 
two. The same principle may be applied with like desira- 
ble effect to dress. 

Q. What ought to be the material for under-dresses ? 

A. Either wool,. silk, or cotton. 

Q. Ought the same under-dress to be worn both day and night ? 

A. Never. Health and economy both require two full 
changes of the under-dress, one for the day and one for the 
night. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 39 

Q. What general rule ought to be adopted with regard to expendi- 
tures for dress ? 

A. Whatever the pecuniary means, expenditures for 
dress ought ever to be reasonably moderate, yet the de- 
mands of correct taste ought to be complied with by all 
persons. Excess and deficiency of dress are both indicative 
of vulgarity and defective education. With regard to 
fashions — 

" Be not the first by whom the new are tried. 
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside." 

(See Cutter's Physiology, 45 to 50 ; Moore's Health and Disease, 176 
to 179; Moore's Body and Mind. 196.) 



SECTION VI. 

EXERCISE. 

" The education that does not assist to invigorate the body is injurious, and 
all that favors continued inaction fosters idleness and debility. The young 
child has a nervous system at least five times larger, in proportion to its 
body, than the adult. Hence the restlessness and animation of childhood, its 
quick exhaustion, and ready recovery ; its power to bear rapid and varied 
movements, and its intolerance of monotony. If we do not consider this 
nervous constitution in training children, we shall do violence to Heavens 
laws, and inflict injury on them, with woe to ourselves." 

" A constant relation exists between breath, food, and action ; and the blood 
is related to the air in digestion and muscular motion, as well as in breath- 
ing, oxygen being absorbed for the purpose of combining with the elements 



40 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

of the body to produce heat and muscular force, and to promote the removal 
of certain elements from the body, in the form of acid, water, urea, <fcc." 

" The provision made in the constitution of a muscle, for its growth and 
development by exercise, is very remarkable. The parallel threads of which 
a muscle is composed, instead of fraying and breaking by wear, like the cord- 
age of a machine, are not only individually strengthened by use, but are also 
increased in number ; for, in proportion to the demand upon the blood, the 
materials of the muscle are supplied, provided, of course, that exertion be 
kept within due bounds, as moderation is the principle on which the whole 
system is constructed." 

" Exercise in cool and pure air is the grand promoter of healthy action in 
all the body, but especially in the liver, lungs, and skin, and therefore it is 
most conducive to the vigorous performance of the digestive functions, and 
also those of the brain." 

" Let girls be allowed to exercise themselves as freely and with dress as 
unrestraining as boys, and they will grow up with straight and graceful backs. 
By the pitiful management of our mothers and grandmothers, one-half of the 
females of this generation are crooked, and nearly all the rest weak and 
narrow-chested. Let girls trundle the hoop, now with the right hand, now 
with the left, for the body always curves toward the side most used. Bat- 
tledoor and shuttlecock, la grace, dumb-bells, chest-expanders, ball, are all 
good exercises for girls, but nothing is superior to walking and running in the 
fields. 

'Their liberal walks, save when the skie3 in rain 
Or fogs relent, no season should confine, 
Or to the cloister's gallery or arcade.' 

Let them tire themselves thus, and then let them rest, as may be most com- 
fortable, not by perching on a high, narrow seat, with a horrible upright back, 
but as they best can, on the reclining board, the sofa, or even the floor. Na- 
ture indicates the propriety of reclining after exercise, as every savage 
knows; and thus, by obeying nature, relieves the spine and muscles, which 
would otherwise grow awry, as readily in the forest as in the boarding- 
school. Every occupation requiring the use of both hands and eyes should 
be so contrived as to prevent continued stooping. Music, that ' inflames, 
exalts, and ravishes the soul,' is often made the cause of much misery to the 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 41 

body, ' and wakes to horror the tremendous strings,' by occupying the time 
that should be given to healthier exercise, or by "boring and fatiguing a brain 
n no degree attuned to harmony, and therefore causing disgust and suffer- 
ng, instead of exciting that pleasant state of feeling which, by fully rous- 
ng the head and nerves, acts in some measure as a substitute for a joyous 
■dm p." G. Moore. 



Q. What is the sixth rule of Physical Education ? 
A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the laws 
which regulate and govern my relations to exercise. 

Q. What do you understand by exercise 1 ? 

A. The putting in action the powers and faculties. 

Q. What effects are produced by proper exercise ? 

A. All the powers and faculties are developed and 
strengthened, and made active and useful, by exercise ; and 
all become weak and inefficient by the neglect of exercise. 

Q. Ought exercise to be varied? 

A. Exercise must be sufficiently varied to reach each 
class of the powers and faculties, and every member of 
each class ; thus each must be exercised upon its own 
object — sights for the eye, sounds for the ear, and motion 
for the muscles, &c. 

Q. Can one person take exercise for another ? 

A. Each individual must exercise his powers and facul- 
ties by his own action, the Creator having rendered it 
impossible for one person to take exercise for another. 

Q. What Qught to be the primary object of all educators ? 



42 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

A. To excite the subjects of their care to a constant and 
orderly activity. Communicating knowledge is a secondary 
consideration, and of much inferior importance. 

Q. How, then, ought all attempts to make lessons and exercises very 
easy, to be regarded ? 

A. As positive and great evils. Exercises which do not 
stretch the muscles, beneficence that ends in good inten- 
tions, and lessons that require no thought, act like the 
torpedo, and produce general paralysis. 

Q. What is the best mode of muscular exercise ? 

A. That which the beneficence of the Creator has made, 
like the air, free to all — walking. A brisk walk, equal to 
three, or better five miles a day, in the fresh, open air, will 
keep an ordinary constitution in good health for many 
years, other things being properly attended to. 

Q. Ought walking to be more generally practiced ? 

A. Certainly. Parents and teachers should encourage 
the subjects of their care to regular, brisk, and rather long 
walks, daily ; they should take care to see that the carriage 
of the body be erect and graceful, the step quick, elastic, 
aud properly timed ; and if they desire to perform their 
duties in this respect in the best manner, they will perhaps 
take a hint from Puss and Biddy, and give the example 
of the excellence to which they would form their young 
admirers. 

Q. What cheap and simple instrument is now much used for exer- 
cising the arms and muscles of the shoulders and back? 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 43 

A. The triangle. It admirably exerts the upper limbs 
and muscles of the chest, and, indeed, when adroitly em- 
ployed, those of the whole body. 

Q. How is the triangle made ? 

A. Take a stick of walnut wood four feet long and one 
inch and a half in diameter. To each end connect a rope, 
the opposite extremities of which being fastened together, 
are attached to the ceiling of a room or suspended in a 
play-ground, at such height as to allow the motion of 
swinging by the hands. The parallel bars and ladder are 
also used for similar purposes, and with general good effects. 
These simple contrivances, and some few others of like 
character, ought to find a place and a regular and habitual 
use in all the families and schools of our country. 

Q. What other modes of muscular exercise, accessible to all, are highly 
beneficial ? 

A. Reading aloud and declamation. These ought to be 
regular and frequent exercises ; they have so good effects 
in strengthening the lungs, and through them improving 
the health generally, that they are often prescribed by the 
best-informed physicians as active remedial agents. Yocal 
music is also equally salutary in its effects upon the health, 
and it is a permanent source of domestic enjoyment, and a 
most effective medium of moral influence. - It is also ex- 
tremely interesting and attractive in the school, and may 
be made an important and durable, element of order. 

Q. Where can you readily find one of the strongest illustrations of the 
effects of exercise ? 



44 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

A. in the general and great superiority of the right hand 
over the left in strength and activity. This remarkable 
difference is, probably, solely the result of exercise : bestow 
as much care upon the cultivation of the left hand as has 
been given to the right, and its strength and capability 
would be equal ; besides, a pretty equal use of each of the 
hands and arms is necessary to the full preservation of the 
balance and symmetry of the person. 

Q. What other important result is produced by exercise 1 
A. Habit is formed by it. 

Q. What is habit? 

A. A firmly established mode of action. 

Q. What has been truly said of the strength of habits 1 

A. Habits, in the beginning, are like threads of the spi- 
der's web, which break at the slightest touch, but in their 
maturity they become chains of iron, which few have 
power to break. 

Q. Have great evils already resulted from the general ignorance and 
non-observance of the laws of muscular exercise ? 

A. There is every reason to believe that evils of mo- 
mentous character are already common in the United 
States, originating from this source. Dr. Warren states, in 
a lecture delivered in one of the best private female schools 
in this country, that of the well-educated females of his ac- 
quaintance, " about one-half are affected with some degree of 
distortion of the spine." 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 45 

Q. Ought more time and attention to be given to the subject of mus- 
cular exercise ? 

A. There is no other department of general education 
which now demands more immediate attention from pa- 
rents, teachers, and school officers, especially in cities and 
large villages, than that of muscular exercise. " Children 
are not formed for monotony and fixedness ; their nervous 
systems will not bear it with impunity, and even their very 
bones are intolerant of the erect position for any length of 
time. They are made to be restless and active, and are not 
healthy if forced to be otherwise." 

(Cutter's Physiology, 115, 124; Mayhew's Popular Education, 74, 78; 
Moore's Body and Mind, 291, 300 ; Spurzheim's Education, 72, 
74 ; Warren's (John C.) Lecture ; Humphrey's Domestic Educa- 
tion, chap. 4.) 



SECTION VII. 

REST. 



"It is evident that sleep is intended to restore the -waste of power pro- 
duced by the muscular action, and by the air acting on the blood, and there- 
fore it should be proportioned to the demands made on the body by exercise, 
according to the temperature of the air, and to the period of life. A child 
cannot labor, and also grow, without very much sleep, and at first the supply 
of food and sleep should be equally liberal, and the exertions of the muscles 
no more than sufficient to promote their development, or just such as is vol- 



4fi EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

untarily taken in play. Constrained toil and broken rest soon cause young 
persons to appear aged, stunted, weak, and wretched." 

" We wish we could impress upon all the vast importance of securing sound 
and abundant sleep ; if so, we should feel that we had done an immense 
good to our fellow-beings, not merely iu preventing insanity, but other dis- 
eases also. We are confident that the origin of much of the nervousness and 
impaired health of individuals who are not decidedly sick, is owing to want 
of sufficient and quiet rest. To procure this should be the study of every 
one. We fear that the great praise of early rising has had this bad effect, to 
make some believe that sleep was of but little consequence. Though it may 
be well to rise with the sun, or when it is light (not before, however), yet 
this is of minor importance in comparison with retiring early to bed." 

Da. Brigham. 

" Sleep results from a constitutional bodily necessity ; the attention of the 
mind must be withdrawn from the body, or the machinery of nerves and 
blood-vessels cannot be properly repaired, and fitted for further action." 



Q. What is the seventh rule of Physical Education ? 
A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the laws 
which regulate and govern my relations to rest. 

Q. What is rest ? 

A. Rest is the suspension of voluntary action ; this oc- 
curs only in regular sleep. 

Q. Is sound and unbroken sleep necessary to our health ? 

A. Indispensably so : without the requisite number of 
hours appropriated to sleej), neither health of body nor of 
mind can be possessed by any human being. Defective 
and disturbed sleep is, perhaps, the most active cause of 
insanity and of many other forms of disease. 

Q. What number of hours ought to be devoted to sleep ? 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM;. 47 

A. From fifteen to twenty hours for an infant ; twelve 
hours from the age of five to twelve ; ten hours from the 
age of twelve to sixteen ; nine hours from sixteen to twenty- 
four ; and for a healthy adult seven hours, are respectively 
sufficient times for sleep. 

Q. Will sound and refreshing sleep immediately succeed active and 
exhausting exercise and full meals 1 

A. It will not. Intervals of moderate exercise, of from 
two to three hours' duration, ought to separate seasons of 
high activity and full meals from the hours of sleep. 

Q. What are the general requisites for healthy sleep % 
A. The essentials for refreshing sleep are ease, timely 
retirement, large bed-rooms, good air, a comfortable degree 
of warmth, the absence of glaring light and irregular noise, 
an unrestrained position, freedom from abdominal disten- 
tion, a sound and clean skin, a good conscience, and a prop- 
erly prepared bed. 

Q. What are the best materials for beds 1 

A. For summer, husk — for fall, hair mattresses ; and for 
very cold weather, perhaps feather-beds. 

Q. How may a tendency to wakefulness be sometimes subdued ? 

A. A monotonous sound is soothing, if not too acute; 
fixing the eye upon an imaginary object seemingly a few 
inches before the face, as if, so to say, looking at nothing in 
a microscope, favors sleep ; and the repetition of a few well- 
known words, over and over again, counting a large num- 
ber one by one, or repeating the multiplication table, will 



48 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

often succeed in quieting the brain, and bringing the action 
of the heart and lungs into that slower reciprocity of move- 
ment which occurs during sleep, and prepares for it. 

(See Moore's Health and Disease, 83, 94; Cutter's Physiology, 176; 
Spurzheim's Education, 72 ; Warren's Preservation of Health, 
66 to 69.) 



SECTION VIII. 

CLEANLINESS. 



" The healthy action of the skin is very important to the comfort of every 
man ; and perhaps there is no more common cause of stomach disorder than 
an excessive sensibility of the skin, induced by indulgence in bed, by warm 
rooms, by oppressive clothing, by too much thinking, by abuse of passion, by 
unsuitable food and drink, and by the neglect of cold water, which is alike 
valuable as a means of purifying and invigorating the skin and the stomach. 

" The natural warmth of the body has been shown to depend on the action 
of oxygen on the substance of the body, and it is remarkable that this warm- 
ing influence — an effect of the union of oxygen with the materials of the body 
— is greatest in those parts in which warmth is most needed, such as the skin. 
The outer skin is composed almost entirely of gelatin, which is an oxide of 
albumen, and it is the provision of nature to produce warmth in the skin and 
vigor in the whole body, by every influence that shall determine the blood to 
the surface, which is abundantly supplied with appropriate vessels to promote 
the rapid change of the epidermis. Nothing can be more conducive to the 
invigoration of the skin and its due oxidation, than daily washing the whole 
surface rapidly with water, followed by brisk friction with a coarse towel, 
and by exercise in proportion to the muscular power. Over and above the 
direct advantage to general health obtained by these means, there is a vast 
improvement in the feelings and temper, from the circumstance that the 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 49 

nerves of the skin are brought into vigorous action, for the nerves are the 
means by which we are most sensible of ourselves in connection with the 
body. A man with a healthy skin feels sound all over, but a diseased skin 
constantly presents annoyance where we are most sensitive. The importance 
of a clean and healthy skin is seen when we reflect on its extensive influence, 
both as a surface from which perspiration is passing in a constant though 
often invisible stream, and also as a surface that imbibes much of whatever 
remains in contact with it, whether pure air or sordid materials. The skin, 
in fact, mainly regulates the balance between waste and supply, in relation 
to exercise and temperature. "When we consider what is the function of the 
skin in respect to excretion, we see at once how greatly its action must influ- 
ence that of the lungs, kidneys, liver, and mucous lining of the whole interior. 
The perspiration yields nearly ah! the elements that are found in the urine — 
namely, ammonia, and various salts of lime, potash, soda, with carbonic acid 
and water, which exhale also from the lungs. But the most important office 
of the skin seems to be that of cooling the body by a large evaporation from 
its surface. Perspiration is not so much a secretion as a transudation, for the 
glands of the skin do not yield more than one-sixth part of the total fluid 
exhaling from it. Valentin found that a healthy, active man, who consumed 
daily 40,000 grains of food and drink, lost 19,000 grains, or more than three 
and a half pounds, from the skin and lungs, and he estimated that two and a 
half pounds passed by the skin. Daily experience confirms the opinion of 
Sanctorious as to the importance of the skin, in maintaining the balance be- 
tween all the functions of the body. But perhaps the most striking proof of 
its importance is the fact, that if the skin be covered with any tiling through 
which vapor cannot penetrate, such as a caoutchouc (india-rubber) dress, the 
consequences are exactly similar to those of strangulation ; and if a man were 
varnished all over, he would die with precisely the same state of blood as if 
he were hanged. 

"Friction of the skin is more necessary than water, for the preservation of 
its health and cleanliness. The Arabs, in the Great Desert of Sahara, we are 
told by Richardson, succeed in purifying and invigorating their bodies by 
rubbing them. with dry sand. The benefit of dry friction is shown in the 
effects of good grooming on horses. All animals naturally groom themselves, 
or each other, and it is quite a lesson to witness the grotesque and pictur- 

4 



50 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM 

esque groups of cattle engaged in the mutual good office of currying each 
other. Many insects are provided with a natural comb and brush on their 
feet, for the purpose of keeping themselves clean. Cleanliness of the skin is 
the sign of health among all creatures in their natural state, and with man, a 
feeble state is always associated with an ill-conditioned skin ; it is therefore 
the more necessary for a person in such a state to use the proper means of 
encouraging the cutaneous circulation, as he thus not only increases his com- 
fort, but really employs the likeliest means of improving the general health, 
and curing his malady. I dwell on the advantages of friction on the skin, 
because I know that in many cases the bath would neither be so convenient 
nor so useful. Water may be used to excess ; but this cannot happen in 
using the flesh-brush or the hair-glove, for wherever its use is appropriate, it 
can scarcely be too freely applied without giving sufficiently early warning. 
When the skin is in a thoroughly good condition, and the body altogether 
vigorous, it almost keeps itself clean. Mr. "Walker, the ingenious author of 
' The Original,' argued well in defense of the opinion, that a healthy state of 
the nerves and circulation produces a kind of vital emanation that repels 
dust and dirt from the surface. But however that may be, it is certainly a 
healthy thing, with the help of ablution, to keep the dust and dirt off our 
bodies ; and besides, 

'With this external virtue, age maintains 
A decent grace ; without it, youth and charm* 
Are loathsome.' " 

G. Moore. 



Q. What is the eighth rule of Physical Education ? 

A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the 
laws which regulate and govern my relations to cleanliness. 

Q. What is the first requirement of cleanliness? 

A. That the person shall be kept, at all times, free from 
impurities of every description. 

Q. In how many ways is the person exposed to impurities? 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 51 

A. Two : first, by its own excretions ; second, by dust 
and other substances foreign to itself. 

Q. What is the number of pores in the human skin ? 

A. Seven millions. 

Q. What quantity of excretory matter passes through these pores daily ? 

A. From twenty to forty ounces, according to the vari- 
ous circumstances, states, and condition of the health. This 
matter, to a considerable extent, is deposited on the sur- 
face of the skin, and unless removed, will be absorbed 
and carried into the blood, thus imminently endangering 
the health. 

Q. What ought to be done to obviate this danger ? 

A. The whole surface of the body, from the crown of the 
head to the soles of the feet, ought to be washed daily with 
soft water and good soap, and thoroughly rubbed and dried 
with the flesh-brush, hair-glove, and coarse crash towels. 

Q. Have all persons the time, means, and proper places for the per- 
formance of this duty % 

A. Every person has the time, certainly ; for the general 
observance of this duty would perceptibly extend the period 
of human life ; and the means and opportunity ought to be 
in every person's power, as they would scarcely add to al- 
ready necessary expenditures. 

Q. What were Sir Astley Cooper's directions for taking a cheap 
and efficacious bath, and which every person who chooses may at 
once adopt 1 ? 

A. "Immediately on rising from bed, and having all 



52 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

previously ready, take off all your night-dress ; then take 
up from your earthen pan of two gallons of water a towel 
quite wet, but not dropping; begin at your head, rubbing 
hair and lace, and neck and ears, well ; then wrap yourself 
behind and before, from neck to chest, your arms and every 
portion of your body. Remand your towel into the pan, 
charge it afresh with water, and repeat once more all I 
have mentioned, excepting the head, unless that be in a 
heated state, when you may go over that again also, and 
with advantage. Three minutes will now have elapsed. — 
Throw- your towel into the pan, and proceed with two coarse, 
dry, long towels, to scrub your head, and face, and body, 
front and rear, when four minutes will have you in a glow; 
then wash and hard-rub your feet, brush your hair and 
complete your toilet ; and trust me that this will give a 
new zest to your existence. A mile of walking may be 
added with advantage." 

Q. Are there not some persons to whom the application of water in 
the mode proposed would not be beneficial 1 

A. Perhaps such instances may be found, but they are 
not likely to occur often : wherever they do exist, apply 
dry friction with the fle^h-brush, hair-glove, or crash-towel. 
Friction with or without water is always proper, and always 
indispensable to health. 

Q. In addition to cleanliness, what other good effects will be produced 
by daily ablution and friction of the skin ? 

A. The general health will be greatly augmented, the 
cutaneous circulation cpiickened and improved, the whole 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 53 

system will be invigorated, and rendered nearly impervious 
to colds in every form. 

Q. What is the best time for bathing ? 

A. For the hardy and robust, immediately after rising 
in the morning; for the delicate and infirm, some two 
hours after breakfast. 

Q. Ought parents to train up their children in such a way that they 
shall ever regard the observance of cleanliness as a positive duty ? 

A. Both parents and teachers cannot too pointedly insist 
upon the punctual performance of this duty. 

Q. What other attentions to the person do the laws of cleanliness re- 
quire ? 

A. The mouth ought to be well rinsed with cold 
water, and the teeth well brushed immediately after rising 
in the morning, after each meal, and before retiring at 
night. Great care ought always to be taken that every 
particle of food remaining between the teeth, after eating, 
shall be removed ; and for this purpose, nothing is better 
than the quill tooth-pick. Shaving, dressing the hair, and 
thoroughly cleansing the nails, ought to be neatly per- 
formed daily before breakfast. 

Q. What rule should be observed with regard to spitting ? 

A. In a state of sound health and correct habits, spitting 
is wholly unnecessary, and children cannot be too thor- 
oughly bred to the avoidance of this vulgar and offensive 
act. To spit upon the deck, in the British navy, subjects 
the offender to severe corporal punishment ; and spitting 



5J. EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

on the carpets and floors of dwellings, school-houses, 
churches, offices, steamboats, and railroad cars, ought to 
be made a penal offense by statute, subjecting offenders to 
fines, if not to imprisonment. 

Q. What does cleanliness require in reference to clothing 1 
A. Garments worn next the skin ought to be changed, 
aired, and washed often. The outer garments, hat, coat, 
pants, &c, must be neatly brushed and cleaned each morn- 
ing, and at such other times as may be necessary, the rule 
being that they shall always be free of dust. The boots, 
shoes, &c., must be well cleaned, and blacked and polished, 
each morning. 

Q. With regard to beds, what does the duty of cleanliness require? 

A. That great care shall be taken to have the materials 
of which they are made — straw, husks, hair,. feathers, &c. — 
carefully freed from every impurity. Bedding ought to be 
well aired daily, and sheets, &c, washed often. Beds and 
bedding require constant and vigilant attention, for, unless 
they are in perfect order, they highly endanger the health. 
There are some beds whose very aspect and delicious sweet- 
ness soothe the nerves at once to quiet and refreshing sleep ; 
there are others of directly opposite qualities, and in which 
the sufferer can no more sleep than if he were wrapped in 
the poisoned shirt of Xessus. 

Q. With regard to dwellings, what do the laws of cleanliness require? 

A. That every occupied apartment shall be well swept 

and dusted daily. That cellars and all other places shall 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 55 

be kept perfectly free of all decaying and putrid vegetable 
and animal matter. Twice in each year, at least, carpets 
must be removed and well cleared from dust and other im- 
purities, and the floors thoroughly cleansed. Cellars, and 
ceilings, from the cellar to the attic, must be well white- 
washed, and the walls washed, and, if need be, painted. 
The same rules apply to school-houses, churches, &c. 

Q. What do the laws of cleanliness require with regard to court-yards, 
outhouses, &c. 1 

A. That they shall always be vigilantly watched, and 
kept free of all things that can endanger the health. Own- 
ers and occupants, parents and teachers, ought all to act as 
Health Vigilance Committees in such cases, and see that 
the duty of perfect cleanliness shall ever be enforced by 
adequate pains and penalties. 

Q. How ought the laws of cleanliness to be enforced in cities and 
large villages ? 

A. With the same severity that is observed in military 
encampments. Vigilant boards of health, inspectors of 
streets, &c, should guard the public health from the ap- 
proach of every danger of this description, and every offense 
against the laws of perfect cleanliness should draw on the 
offender such summary and severe penalties, as would pre- 
vent all repetition of the wrong forever afterward. 

(For authorities on the subject of cleanliness see the Bible, from Gen- 
esis to Revelation; Warren on the Preservation of Health; May- 
hew's Popular Education, 59 to 64; Spurzheim's Education, 71, 
72; Moore's Health and Disease, 142, 146; Humphrey's Domes- 
tic Education, chap. 8.) 



56 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

CIIAPTEE III. 

SECTION I. 

MORAL EDUCATION. 

GOD. 

" Wabjjuiiton justly remarks, that ' of all literary exercitations, none are of 
so immediate concern to ourselves as those which let us into a knowledge of 
our own nature ; for these alone improve the heart, and form the mind to 
in.' Ignorance, indeed, is only a little less injurious than the abuse of 
knowledge; and as the most pernicious ignorance is that which conceals the 
claims of God upon our spirits, so the most destructive perversion of intelli- 
gence is that which, like an angel of darkness disguised in light, invests 
moral falsehood with the appearance of moral truth. The only proper 
method of avoiding, or, rather, of meeting and subduing, both these imminent 
evils, is humbly to learn and hopefully to apply the momentous truths which 
our Maker places before us, both in science and in revelation. The attempt 
tn separate the latter from the former is like attempting to remove the sun 
from the planets: they belong to each other, and are bound together by the 
light that dwells among them. We are endowed with faculties both fur 
divine and human associations, and hence we can acquire a knowledge of all 
that concerns our well-being with regard either to tins world, or that toward 
which we are hastening. 

" The physical and spiritual worlds are in perpetual connection, and all our 
true interests are essentially religious, because they are everlasting ; there- 
fore to separate true knowledge from devout feeling is to divorce what God 
has joined together, and thus produce a profane severance, like that of faith 
from love, which, as it begins in distrust, must end in malevolence. 

'' Reference to our origin is not unnecessary in such an inquiry as the pres- 
ent. No investigation of God's works can be properly commenced, nor hap- 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 57 

pily conducted, without regarding the religious bearing of the subject. Sci- 
ence is but meretricious, if not the handmaid of religion. "We are never free 
from obligation to our Maker ; and without a distinct acknowledgment of the 
Great Pirst Cause, we can neither reason rightly concerning design, nor form 
any expectation concerning our individual destiny. The value of satisfying 
ourselves that the doctrines of the Bible respecting our Maker are really his 
own revelations of himself for our benefit, arises from the certainty that we 
cannot receive them as true without confiding in the benevolence of his pur- 
pose and the providence of his power." 

" Of course the moral perception must precede and guide the intellectual 
faculty, or otherwise the mind becomes meteoric and uncertain ; being ex- 
cited into action, not according to choice induced by regard to moral results, 
but according to accident, or as objects may happen to be more or less pleas- 
ing or repulsive. In fact, it appears that unless the mind be employed in 
obedient accordance to a higher will than that which belongs to itself, educa- 
tion or improvement, except in a brutal or mechanical sense, is not possible. 
None but a being in some measure apprehending the mind of its Maker, can 
be governed by moral laws, or be made to feel as we all do, from an intuitive 
conviction, however disobeyed or however condemning, that the law written 
on the heart by the finger of God is holy, just, and good. This proves that 
the human mind acknowledges no lasting relationship with things that per- 
ish ; for a man that has been taught to love moral truth cannot afterward 
be satisfied with defects ; his will and his love must seek for rest in moral 
perfection and eternal life, that is, in God. We may then well conclude, in 
the language of Holy Writ, and say, ' there is a spirit in man, and the inspi- 
ration of the Almighty giveth him understanding.' Law and conscience 
spring not from the dust." G. Moore. 



Q. What is Moral Education ? 

A. It is that process by which the moral faculties are 
duly developed and disciplined, in which the individual 
clearly perceives the distinctions of right and wixmg in his 
own actions with regard to others and himself, and in which 



58 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

he acquires the disposition and the ability to do what is 
right and to avoid what is wrong. 

Q. What is the object of moral education ? 

A. To make the heart honest, true, and warm. 

Q. What is the first rule of moral education ? 

A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the laws 
which regulate and govern my relations to God, the Crea- 
tor and Preserver of all things. 

Q. Are those relations numerous and important? 

A. Inconceivably so : they extend to and embrace my 
whole being, in all its ramifications, physical, moral, and 
intellectual, so that it is truly said, that " in Him we live, 
and move, and have our being." 

Q. What immediate proofs have we of God's direct and continued ac- 
tion in sustaining our present state of being % 

A. The three prime attributes of the Creator, namely, 
Omnipotence, Beneficence, and Omniscience. 

Q. Which is the central attribute ? 
A. Beneficence, or Love. 

Q. What do you observe in ^ie character and providence of God, 
worthy of man's profoundest admiration and reverence, and, to the ut- 
most extent of his ability, of constant imitation in his character and ac- 
tions ? 

A. Omnipotence and Omniscience are so arranged and 
exerted as to render them always the servants and minis- 
ters of Beneficence or Love. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 59 

Q. What continually emanate from these prime attributes of the Cre- 
ator 1 

A. The three atmospheres, the withdrawal of which for 
a single moment would terminate our life. 

Q. What are the names of those atmospheres 1 
A. Physical, Moral, and Intellectual. 

Q. What states in man's being- correspond to these atmospheres ? 
A. Sensation, Feeling, Thought. 

Q. What are the primary divisions of these states ? 
A. Pleasure and Pain, Hope and Fear, the Known and 
the Unknown. 

Q. In how many ways is an individual liable to err 1 

A. There are three general modes of committing errors : 
the activity of man's powers and faculties may be deficient 
or excessive, or it may be misdirected. 

O. What common words are descriptive of the perversion and abuse 
of the powers and faculties ? 

A. Sensuality, Sentimentality, and Ideality. 

Q. Who are sensualists? 

A. Those persons who make the gratification of their 
animal appetites, and the pursuit of physical pleasures, the 
great object of their lives. 

Q. Who are sentimentalists ? 

A. Those persons who find their chief enjoyment in a 
feverish and disorderly excitement of their moral feelings. 



60 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. Who are idealists ? 

A. Those persons who delight to spend their lives in 
useless abstractions, far away from the actual duties of life. 

Q. Is there great danger of our falling into some one, or all, of the 
above errors? 

A. In our present state of weakness and ignorance, our 
great liability to err renders a strength greater than our 
own to support us, and a wisdom superior to our own to 
direct us, the prime necessities of our well-being. 

Q. Where are we to look for this strength and wisdom, thus shown to 
he indispensable to our welfare and happiness? 

A. In the Bible. 

Q. What is the Bible 1 

A. It is the Book of Books, which the great majority of 
the wisest and be6t men of all ages, who have carefully read 
and studied it, regard as an express revelation from God 
the Creator to man his creature, in which man's origin, 
nature, relations, duties, and destiny are distinctly and un- 
equivocally declared. 

Q. What effects are produced in man by the proper study of the Bible, 
and the daily and punctual performance of the duties it enjoins? 

A. It reveals to man his relations to his Creator and to 
his fellow-man; shows him the duties involved by those 
relations, and enjoins their exact performance ; it fills his 
physical nature with health, strength, and beauty ; it awak- 
ens his moral affections, and purifies his heart; it rouses 
and expands his intellect, and fills it with all the might and 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. Ql 

energy of thought : in a word, it transforms his whole being, 
and renews within him his Creator's image. 

Q. Is the Bible adapted to the wants and capacities of all ; can all per- 
sons read and understand it 1 

A. The Bible, being the revelation of the Creator him- 
self to man his creature for the express purpose of showing 
man his relations and duties, must, of necessity, contain the 
appropriate lessons for every human soul ; and they must be 
received, embraced, and obeyed, or man must perish forever. 

Q. Has the Bible had much influence on the world ? 

A. Far more than all other books that have been writ- 
ten. It has already wrought several entire changes in the 
thoughts and. institutions of all civilized nations, and its 
inevitable effect will be to produce greater and more gen- 
eral revolutions. For the last three centuries its influence 
has been rapidly augmenting ; and at this time its electri- 
fying truths, carried by steam and in the lightning's flash, 
are daily reaching the utmost limits of the earth. The 
nations that have most thoroughly studied and appropri- 
ated the truths of the Bible by rigidly adhering to them, 
and, still further, incorporating them in their thoughts and 
institutions, are, ultimately, as sure to possess every foot of 
the earth's habitable surface, as the sun is sure to continue 
to rise and set in the heavens. 

Q. What is the order in which the truths of the Bible are developed ? 
A. First, in man as an individual ; second, in the nation; 
third, in universal humanity. 



Q2 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. How ought the people of the United States to regard the Bible ? 

A. As the most precious gift of God to them ; as the 
great Charter of Freedom to all nations of the earth : from 
its sacred pages all the electrifying principles of their own 
immortal Declaration of Independence were almost liter- 
ally transcribed. They should regard the Bible as the 
great Book of their Fathers, whence they derived that wis- 
dom, virtue, and heroism that made the United States the 
first fulfillment of the glorious prediction that a nation shall 
be born in one day. 

Q. Do the truths of the Bible, when rightly apprehended and incorpo- 
rated in the thoughts and institutions of any people, add to their national 
power and influence ? 

A. " Knowledge and faith, alike experimental and alike 
working by love, subdue all kingdoms of this world ; and 
the people that possess the highest moral motives must, 
therefore, ultimately predominate in every clime. Intellect 
must reign, and that because true religion is its living and 
quickening spirit. It cannot yield to error, it cannot sink 
at the sight of difficulty, but must gain fresh strength from 
every opposition, for its business is to conquer all enemies, 
and to confer a resistless life on industry and science." 

Q. Is there a principle or faculty in man which constantly urges him 
to the punctual performance of his duty, and as constantly reprimands 
him for the neglect of duty ? 

A. Yes : conscience. 

Q. Can the dictates of conscience ever be in opposition to require- 
ments of known truth? 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. (33 

A. Never. It is the office of the intellect to perceive 
truth ; conscience dictates to embrace and obey the truth 
wherever perceived. 

Q. What five ideas does Whewell enumerate, as constituting the cen- 
tral idea of morality 1 

A. Benevolence, Justice, Truth, Purity, and Order. 

Q. What does Whewell state as the immediate object of each of these 
ideas % 

A. " Benevolence is mainly concerned in guiding and gov- 
erning the affections ; Justice, in controlling and correcting 
our mental desires ; Truth, in directing the mutual under- 
standing of men ; Purity, in regulating the bodily desires ; 
Order engages the reason in the consideration of rules and 
laws, by which virtue and its opposite are defined." 

Q. With respect to God, what inquiries does the Bible represent as 
apt to arise in the soul of man 1 

• A. "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, 
And bow myself before the high God ? 
Shall I come before Him with burnt-offerings, 
"With calves of* a year old? 

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, 
Or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? 
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, 
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul V 

Q. What answer to these inquiries is given in the Bible ? 
A. "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; 
And what doth the Lord require of thee, 



64 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

But to do justly, aud to love mercy, 
And to walk humbly with thy God ?" 

Q. Will you now give an accurate and comprehensive summary of our 
whole moral duty? 

A. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy 
heart, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This 
is the first and great commandment ; and the second is like 
unto it, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 
On these two hang all the law and the prophets." 

Q. How can satisfactory evidence of such love to God be given by 
man ? 

A. Only by an accurate knowledge of the Creator's laws, 
and by a prompt and cheerful obedience to their require- 
ments. 

Q. Where are the states of feeling which ought to be constantly cul- 
tivated toward God briefly and accurately described? 

A. In the Lord's Prayer. 
Q. Will you repeat that prayer ? 

A. " Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy 
name ; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it 
is in heaven ; give us this day our daily bread ; and forgive 
us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against 
us ; lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil ; 
for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, ibr- 
'ever and ever. Amen." 

(See Wayland's Moral Science, 151 to 189; Whewell'a Elements of 
Morality, Book iv. ; Dymond's Essays on Morality, 55, 58, 75, 
260 ; Humphrey's Domestic Education, chap, xii.) 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. $% 



SECTION II. 

PARENTS. 

" Under the general bead of domestic education, I include all the rights 
and duties of parents in the government and instruction of their families. As 
the domestic relations were prior to all others, iu point of time, so they are 
paramount in point of importance. Families are so many divinely instituted 
and independent communities, upon the well-ordering of which the most mo- 
mentous interests of the Church and the State — of time and eternity — are 
suspended. The relation between parents and children, and the obligations 
growing out of it, are elementary and fundamental. They lie at the founda- 
tion of all virtue, of all social happiness, and of all good government. "Were 
some great convulsion suddenly to subvert the political institutions of a State, 
without breaking up its families, those institutions might, under the same or. 
modified forms, soon be re-established : but let the sacred ties of husband 
and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, once be severed, let these ele- 
ments of social order be driven asunder and scattered, and it would be im- 
possible, out of such materials, ever to reconstruct any tolerable form of civil 
government. It would be like dissolving the attraction of cohesion in every 
substance upon the face of the earth. What human power and skill could 
ever after that build a city, or even erect the humblest human habitation ? 

" Every family is a little State or empire within itself, bound together by 
the most endearing attractions, and governed by its patriarchal head, with 
whose prerogative no power on earth has a right to interfere. Nations may 
change their forms of government at pleasure, and may enjoy a high degree 
of prosperity under different constitutions ; and perhaps the time wiJl never 
come when any one form will be adapted to the circumstances of all man- 
kind. But in the family organization there is but one model, for all times 
and all places. It is just the same now as it was in the beginning, and it is 
impossible to alter it, without marring its beauty and directly contravening 
the wisdom and benevolence, of the Creator. It is at once the simplest, 
the safest, and most efficient organization that can be conceived of. Like 

5 



QQ EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

every thing else, it may be perverted to bad purposes ; but it is a divine 
model, and must not be altered." H. Humphrey. 

"Nature has so willed it, that true love, the most exclusive of all feelings, 
should be the only possible foundation of civilization. This sentiment invites 
all men to a simple life, exempt at the same time from idleness, from effem- 
inacy, and from brutal passions. All is harmony, all happiness, in the inti- 
mate link which unites two young married persons. The man, happy in 
the society of his wife, finds his faculties increase with his duties : he at- 
tends to out-door avocations, takes his part in the burdens of a citizen, culti- 
vates his lands, or is usefully occupied in the town. The woman, more re- 
tiring, presides over the domestic arrangements. At home she influences 
her husband ; diffuses joy in the midst of order and abundance ; both see 
themselves reflected in the children seated at their table, who promise, by 
force of example, to perpetuate their virtues." ISAime. — Martin. 



Q. What is tne second rule of Moral Education'? 
A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the laws 
which regulate and govern my parental relations. 

Q. What are some of the principal duties involved by those relations ? 

A. On the part of parents, the duty of making adequate 
provision for the supply of the child's physical, moral, and 
intellectual wants, or, in other words, for the child's proper 
support and education. On the part of the child, the duty 
of prompt and cheerful obedience to the parent's just com- 
mands. 

Q. What preparation on the part of parents is necessary to enable 
them to perform properly this duty to their children ? 

A. They ought, in their own persons and characters, to 
present finished models of perfect health, and of every at- 
tainable perfection. They ought to be thoroughly and prac- 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 67 

tically acquainted with the general laws of Health, Moral- 
ity, and Intellect, and to exercise sleepless vigilance, to see 
that these laws are- duly obeyed on the part of their chil- 
dren. They ought further to maintain a constant, cordial, 
and intelligent co-operation with teachers, so far as the ed- 
ucation of their children may be intrusted to them. 

Q. Have these parental duties been generally and faithfully performed ? 

A. Yery far from it. The appalling disease and mor- 
tality among children indicate the grossest ignorance, or 
the most criminal neglect, of the laws of health : nor does 
the present condition of juvenile morals and intelligence 
give any very cheering evidence that, with regard to them, 
parental obligations have been faithfully observed. 

Q. How far ought parents to co-operate with teachers? 

A. It would be salutary for both parents and children to 
review, carefully and critically, every lesson and exercise 
through the whole course of the child's education. Such 
interest manifested by parents would stimulate the children 
to industry and perseverance ; it would keep up an inti- 
mate and extensive social intercourse between parents and 
children, and be productive of great and permanent good 
in many other ways. 

Q. Ought parents to be vigilant to see that their children are regular, 
constant, and punctual in their attendance at school % 

A. Few things are more important to be enforced upon 
children than proper attendance at school, yet few are so 
little appreciated and so generally neglected. Nothing 



68 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

can more effectually prevent orderly and progressive exer- 
cises, severely tax the patience and thwart every purpose of 
the teacher, than irregular attendance ; nor can any thing, 
in respect to education, be more positively injurious to the 
character of children. The effect of perceiving an orderly 
development of principles, of seeing truth after truth evolved 
in reason's perfect order, is wholly lost ; and every lesson 
and exercise necessarily becomes fragmentary, chaotic, and 
disheartening ; schools are soon regarded as institutions of 
little moment, places of convenient resort for leisure hours, 
and children are confirmed in habits of thoughtless dissipa- 
tion, probably to endure for life, at the very places expressly 
designed to form them to regular and persevering applica- 
tion. 

Q. Ought parents to cultivate assiduously the social affections of their 
children ? 

A. .This subject cannot occupy too much of the time and 
thought of parents. Its importance is so great, that, by the 
Creator's appointment, a most competent and faithful agent 
has been especially assigned to its charge. The Mother is 
the guardian angel of infancy and childhood, and has am- 
ple means and opportunity to draw forth its young heart 
into every proper manifestation of social affection. 

Q. Has not the mother also the greater influence in the moral educa- 
tion of the child 1 

A. " It belongs, without doubt, to the male sex to form 
geometricians, tacticians, chemists, &c. ; but that which is 
properly called man, that is to say, man as a moral being, 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. QQ 

if he has not been formed at his mother's knee, it will al- 
ways be to him the greatest of misfortunes. Nothing can 
ever supply the want of this education. If, especially, the 
mother has made it her duty to impress profoundly the 
divine character on the heart of her child, we may be sure 
that the hand of vice can never entirely efface it." 

Q. What has been called the true mission of the mother, and what 
facts are there in history to stimulate her to fidelity in her appointed 
work ? 

A. " The true mission of the mother is the religious de- 
velopment of infancy and youth. It is upon maternal love 
that the future destiny of the human race depends ; do not, 
then, reject this power. Although it may appear feeble, its 
action is invincible, and it is destined to produce the great- 
est revolution that the world has yet seen. The army of 
the Saviour of mankind was at first composed of a few 
women, and some poor fishermen : to these he added little 
children ; and it is with these fishermen, these women, 
and these little children that he has conquered the world." 

(See Wayland's Moral Science, 312 to 330 ; Humphrey's Domestic 
Education ; Dymond's Essays, 239, 250, 254.) 



70 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

SECTION III. 

TEACHERS. 

" Tue authority of instructors is a delegated authority, derived immediately 
from the parent. He, for the time being, stands to the pupil in loco parentis 
(in the place of the parent). Hence the relation between him and the pupil is 
analogous to that between parent and child ; that is, it is the relation of su- 
periority and inferiority. The right of the instructor is to command : the 
obligation of the pupil is to obey. The right of the instructor is, however, to 
be exercised as I before stated, when speaking of the parent, for the pupil's 
benefit. For the exercise of it he is responsible to the parent, whose profes- 
sional agent he is. He must use his own best skill and judgment in govern- 
ing and teaching his pupil. If he and the parent cannot agree, the connection 
must be dissolved. But, as he is a professional agent, he must use his own 
intellect and skill in the exercise of his own profession, and, in the use of it, 
he is to be interfered with by no one." Waylaxd. 

" What has the teacher to do ? To unfold intellect in varieties of charac- 
ter, to harmonize passion with moral principle, — work for the most powerful 
mind, even with the encouragement and co-operation of society. But the 
educator must carry it on, over a thousand obstacles, and in the face of per- 
petual opposition. He must resist the prejudices of parents desiring evil 
things for their children ; counteract the tremendous influence of bad example 
at home, and be able, in the short period of his power, to awaken a love of 
knowledge and a sense of right, vigorous enough to live and struggle when 
the aids of his sympathy and direction are withdrawn." Lalor. 



Q. What is the third rule of Moral Education ? 
A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the laws 
which regulate and govern my relations to my teachers. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 71 

Q. Are the relations which subsist between teachers and the children 
and youth of their charge important ? 

A. Eminently so. The influence of teachers is second 
to that of parents only in the formation of the character of 
the yonng. 

Q. What relation does the teacher sustain to the child ? 

A. Essentially a parental one. While engaged in his 
official or professional duties, the teacher is in the place of 
the parent. 

Q. How far ought the teacher to be controlled by the parent ? 

A. In private schools, the teacher is the direct agent of 
the parent, and is, like other agents, bound to follow the 
direction of his principal. In the Common Schools the 
teacher is an officer of the law, and not directly responsible 
to the parent. In both kinds of schools, however, public 
and private, such persons only ought to be employed as are 
competent to conduct the school in every particular ; and 
when such are employed, it is the dictate of wisdom and 
sound judgment to leave the entire management of the 
school in their hands. 

Q. What qualifications are necessary to constitute a perfect master 
or mistress of education ? 

A. Sound health and every attainable personal perfec- 
tion. To be thoroughly successful, all the three-fold excel- 
lences, physical, moral, and intellectual, must be perfectly 
exhibited ; as the limit of teachers' perfections will always 
be the goal of the pupil's aspirations. A complete mastery 
of both the science and art of education is indispensable to 



72 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

the success of a teacher. A thorough knowledge of all the 
innumerable phases of youthful character, with almost in- 
tuitive perception of every mode of manifestation, exhaust- 
less sympathy, untiring patience, and absolute self-control, 
form but the outline of the excellences which ought to unite 
in the full and harmonious character of the perfect teacher. 

Q. Is the importance of the teacher's profession now better understood 
and appreciated than formerly ? 

A. Great and gratifying reforms have been carried for- 
ward in the United States within the last twenty-five years : 
never before were sound views and correct information so 
generally disseminated, and never before were so efficient 
organizations for further advancement. The great idea of 
education has obtained a deep and permanent lodgment in 
the minds of the people, and will speedily develop itself in 
far more perfect and efficient organic forms and scientific 
administration than have yet been exhibited. 

Q. What further general changes and progress are now plainly indi- 
cated ? 

A. A much higher standard of qualifications for teachers, 
with adecpiately increased compensation for their services ; 
a more extended course of studies, including the general 
laws of health and the science of education ; simple, yet 
effective, gymnastic exercises and vocal music in all the 
schools ; the organization of the schools into Primary, In- 
termediate, and High ; and a much more general employ- 
ment of female teachers. 

Q. Will the more general employment of female teachers be condu- 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 73 

cive to the prosperity of the schools, and to the advance of sound edu- 
cation ? 

A. Until twelve or fourteen years of age the stamina or 
strength of the system is unequal to regular and continued 
intellectual labor, the most exhausting of all forms of human 
activity; previous to those ages, therefore, the educator 
should make the development of the physical and moral, 
or the cultivation of the health and the affections, the chief 
objects of attention ; and, for both these purposes, females 
usually possess natural aptitude far superior to males. By 
the arrangements of the Creator the care and culture of the 
infancy and childhood of humanity have been especially as- 
signed to woman, and the educator, if he desires success and 
not defeat in the work he proposes, must undeviatingly follow 
the indications of that Being to whom error is impossible. 

Perhaps the most sublime and touching educational les- 
son ever addressed to man, is that which presents the infant 
Saviour of the world, the Representative of Universal Hu- 
manity, reposing upon the consecrated bosom of the Virgin 
Mother. The great moral of this lesson, probably, is, that 
in the fullness of time, the terrific thunders of Sinai shall 
be drowned in the seraphic strains of the jubilant anthem 
of " Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and good- 
will to men." 

(See Wayland's Moral Science ; Whewell's Elements of Morality ; 
The School and Schoolmaster; Dymond's Essays, articles on 
Education; Mann's Lectures and Reports; Page's Theory and 
Practice; Mansfield's American Education; Mayhew's Popular 
Education.) 



Y4 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 



SECTION IV. 

JUSTICE. 

" The Rules of Duty with regard to external things as objects of posses- 
sion, are consequences of the Principle of Justice, that each man is to have 
his own ; and of the Principle of Moral Ends, that Things are to be sought 
only as means to moral ends. 

" The rule that each man is to have his own, is a rule which regulates all 
external acts relative to property. It thus prescribes External Duties. But 
these external duties imply also an Internal Duty, directing the Desires and 
Affections. "We must desire that each man should have his own, and must 
desire things for ourselves, only so far as they are assigned to us by this rule. 
And tins duty enjoins a perfect Fairness and Evenness in our views of exter- 
nal possession ; an equality in our estimate of our own claims with those of 
other persons ; and an absence of any vehemence of Desire which might dis- 
turb this equality. The Duty of a Spirit of Justice excludes all Cupidity 
or eagerness in our desires of wealth ; all Covetousness, or wish to possess 
what is another's ; all Partiality, or disposition to deviate from equal rule 
in judging between ourselves and others. The rule of action is, Let each 
man have his own ; but the rule of desire is, Let no man seek Us own, except 
so far as the former rule directs him to do so. Justice gives to each man his 
own : but each ought to cling to his own, not from the love of riches, but from 
the love of justice. It is the love of equal and steady laws, not of possessions, 
which makes a good man appropriate what is his. This rule does not require 
us to abstain from the usual transactions respecting propeiiy — buying and 
selling, getting and spending — for it is by being employed in such transac- 
tions that property is an instrument of human action, — the means by which 
the characters and dispositions of men manifest themselves. A rich man may 
employ many men in his service by means of his wealth ; nor does morality 
forbid this ; but then, they must be employed for moral purposes." 

Whewell's Elements of Morality. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 75 

Q. What is the fourth rule of Moral Education 1 
A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the 
laws which regulate and govern my relations to justice. 

Q. What do you understand by justice? 

A. That fundamental principle of morality out of which 
arises the obligation to give to each his own, and also the 
principle of moral ends, that things are to be sought only 
as means to moral ends. 

Q. What are some of the principal things which justice enjoins with 
regard to the rights of other persons ? 

A. Justice requires that the persons, feelings, characters, 
reputation, liberty, office, and property of others shall ever 
be duly respected and protected. 

Q. What general rule ought to govern in the performance of these 
and their kindred duties 1 

A. We must do to others as we would have others do 

TO US. 

Q. How may justice be violated in the persons of others ? 

A. By assaults and wounds. 

Q. How may justice be violated with respect to the feelings of others ? 

A. By unjust sneers, by making them subjects of ridi- 
cule, and by all other ways by which unpleasant and pain- 
ful emotions are improperly excited. 

Q. How may justice be violated in respect to the character of others? 
A. By tempting, inducing, and compelling them to per- 
form vicious and criminal actions. 



76 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. What is now a very common and flagitiously wicked mode of vio- 
lating justice in the character of others'? 

A. " By vie io-u •■sly stimulating tJieir imaginations. Xo 
one is corrupt in action until he has become corrupt in im- 
agination. And, on the other hand, he who has filled his 
imagination with conceptions of vice, and who loves to 
feast his depraved moral appetite with imaginary scenes of 
impurity, needs hut the opportunity to become openly 
abandoned. Hence, one of the most nefarious means of cor- 
rupting men is to spread before them those images of pollu- 
tion, by which they will in secret become familiar with sin. 
Such is the guilt of those who write, or publish, or sell, or 
lend, vicious books, under whatever name or character. 
Few instances of human depravity are marked by deeper 
atrocity, than that of an author, or a publisher, who, from 
literary vanity, or sordid love of gain, pours forth over so- 
ciety a stream of moral jDollution, either prose or in poetiy." 

Q. How may justice be violated with regard to the reputation of 
others 1 

A. By any undeserved remark, description, insinuation, 
hint, or intimation of any form, which will lessen their good 
name in the community. 

Q. What is the distinction between character and reputation ? 

A. Character is founded on the positive qualities of a 
person, whether good or bad. Reputation is the opinion of 
a person's character generally entertained in the commu- 
nity where he is known. 

Q. What is liberty? 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. ^ 

A. It is the right to think, speak, move, and act in any 
manner and form one may choose, with this constant pro- 
viso — that the just rights of other persons shall be duly 
respected. 

Q. Is liberty an important right ? 

A. It is second only to that of life itself, and it ought, 
and ever will be, vigilantly guarded and heroically de- 
fended. 

Q. How may justice be violated with respect to liberty? 

A. By any attempt to limit the freedom of thought, 
speech, writing, and printing, and the freedom of the per- 
son, within the restrictions above named. 

Q. How may justice be violated with regard to office ? 

A. Children and pupils violate justice in this respect, 
whenever they do not yield a prompt and cheerful obedi- 
ence to the just orders of their parents and teachers. Adult 
persons violate justice when they refuse obedience to the 
law, and by withholding the support which is due to the 
officers who are charged with the enforcement and execu- 
tion of the law. 

Q. How may justice be violated with regard to the property of others % 
A. By taking what belongs to another, or by withhold- 
ing what is due to another. 

Q. Violations of justice which the law punishes by a forfeiture of life, 
or by imprisonment in the penitentiary, are called by what names ? 
A, Crimes. 



78 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. Violations of justice which render the perpetrator odious, and 
which are sometimes restrained by fines and temporary imprisonment, 
are called by what names ? 

A. Yices. 

Q. Such violations of justice as are not criminal nor vicious, yet ren- 
der the person who is guilty of them offensive, and cause his society to 
be avoided, are called by what name ? 

A. Ill-breeding. 

Q. How have French writers divided the duties which arise out of the 
obligations of justice? 

A. Into the great and little morals : the great morals 
include those duties whose violations are crimes and vices ; 
the little morals include those duties whose violations are 
ill-manners. 

Q. What opinion did Edmund Burke express with regard to the im- 
portance of the manners of a country ? 

A. He said manners were of greater importance than 
laws ; as they were hourly and constantly affecting the feel- 
ings, either happily or unhappily ; whereas the laws were 
comparatively dormant, or only appearing on great oc- 
casions. 

Q. Are the obligations to do justice universal? 

A. Yes. Individuals, parents, teachers, legislators, and 
magistrates are under imperative and perpetual obligations 
to do justice ; for, unless they do, intercourse among men, 
order in families, schools, and States cannot be, and ought 
not to be, maintained. All institutions not founded on 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. ^9 

justice are, in their very nature, temporary, and, sooner or 
later, must pass away. 

(See Wayland's Moral Science, 229 to 274 ; WhewelPs Elements of 
Morality, vol. i., 217 to 222; 341 to 362; Dymond's Essays, 384 
to 403.) 



SECTION V. 

TRUTH. 

" By our intellectual faculties we are able to appreciate and know truth, 
that is, objective truth ; and especially truths which bear upon our actions, 
and which must be taken into account in forming rules of action. Truth is 
the proper object of reason ; that is, of the universal reason of mankind : and 
the supreme rule of human action which belongs to mankind, in virtue of 
their universal faculties, must depend upon the truths which reason makes 
known to us. The love of knowledge impels men to aim at the knowledge 
of such truths : and the love of truth, which thus contributes to a knowledge 
of the Supreme Law, is a virtue. 

"The progress which each man makes in the knowledge of truth, depends 
in a great measure upon himself ; upon his observation ; his diligence, atten- 
tion, patience, in seeking the truth. His progress depends also upon external 
circumstances ; upon the intellectual and moral development of the society in 
which he lives ; and upon his own education, in the largest sense of the term. 
But there are also differences of the mental faculties, between one person 
and another. One man excels another in acuteness and clearness of the 
mind when employed in observation or in reasoning ; one man has a quicker 
or a more tenacious memory than another ; there are various degrees of sa- 
gacity ; various kinds of imagination. Some men have genius. These facul- 
ties aro not properly termed virtues, but gifts, endowments, ability. They 



80 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

may be used as means to right ends, and hence they are termed talents, by 
a metaphor taken from the parable in the New Testament, which teaches ns 
that a man is blamable when he does not use the means of right action as- 
signed to him." Whewell's Elements. 

u Every individual, by necessity, stands in most important relations, both to 
the past and to the future. Without a knowledge of what has been, and of 
what, so far as his fellow-men are concerned, will be, he can form no decision 
in regard to the present. But this knowledge could never be attained unless 
his constitution were made to correspond with his circumstances. It has, 
therefore, been made to correspond. There is, on the one hand, in men, a 
strong a priori disposition to tell the truth; and it controls them, unless 
some other motive interpose ; and there is, on the other hand, a disposition 
to believe what is told, unless some counteracting motive is supposed to 
operate. 

"Veracity has respect to the Past and Pkesent, or to the Future." 

Wayland. 

" Truth is an antithetical idea ; its opposite is Falsehood. The great aim of 
Reason is Truth : and Logic comprises the laws which govern the reason in its 
searches after, in the processes by which it arrives at, Truth. 

"Truth in itself is identical with the highest form of Reality ; and it is the 
parent of all other Reality of actual objective Being. The Ideas, and the 
necessary and universal conceptions which immediately spring out of them, 
are the essential body, Truth ; Actual Being is the exterior embodiment of 
Truth. Hence Truth is that in which the Reason ultimately, necessarily, 
and securely reposes." Tappax's Logic, 197, 198. 

"Truth alone is qualified to settle, compose, and establish the form of so- 
ciety, and to hold as well as to obtain universal dominion over the minds 
and bodies of mankind. We are, naturally, organized in sympathy rather 
with the holy than the evil ; as we see that children, not infected by bad 
example, always love the good and beautiful. We may, therefore, believe 
that when society shall be more imbued with the practical spirit of truth, 
each succeeding generation shall sympathetically, as well as from conviction, 
exhibit more perfectly the beauties of individual and social obedience to 
divine law, which is the proper basis of education, and requires all the super 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. gj 

structure to be conformed to its outline. Instruction in all knowledge and 
action will be successful only in proportion as rule and example are divested 
of the disguises with which men have concealed truth, the most persuasive 
and engaging of all teachers, because really the sole mistress of our constitu- 
tional sympathies. It requires a clear soul to see a truth so as to believe in 
it at first sight, and there is nothing more doubtful than a fact to an ignorant 
mind. The reason of this is, that nothing is understood while standing alone. 
To separate any idea from its connection is to put it out of its place, and 
thus to make it a puzzle. It is like presenting a fossil to a man, and asking 
him what it belonged to when alive, and begging him to describe the nature, 
property, and fashion of the creature of which it once formed a part. A 
large and exact extent of knowledge is demanded mentally to allocate any 
thing, or to form a complete idea of any object before us. Small knowledge 
has a small vocabulary, and no meanings, or, at least, few truths, and what- 
ever does not seem to fall in with these few is looked at as a wonder or 
a lie." G. Moore. 



Q. What is the fifth rule of Moral Education 1 
A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the 
laws which regulate and govern my relations to truth. 

Q. What do you understand by truth 1 

A. In its most comprehensive signification, truth de- 
scribes the structures, functions, relations, and laws, both 
material and spiritual, which the Creator has established in 
the universe. In this signification, truth is the source of 
all power, justice, and science, the only fit object of all se- 
rious study, and the proper end of all rational inquiry. 

Q. Is truth an important principle in education 1 
A. None can be more important. What vital air is to 
the body truth is to the soul ; in it the soul lives, and moves, 

a 



g2 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

and has its being; and in the physical, moral, and intellect- 
ual worlds Truth is the Word of God, " Thy Word is 
Truth." 

Q. What are the three great departments of Truth ? 
A. Physical, Moral, and Intellectual. 

Q. What do you understand by Physical Truth 1 
A. Physical Truth describes matter, in all its structures, 
functions, relations, and laws. 

Q. What sciences arise immediately out of this department of Truth? 

A. Mixed mathematics and chemistry. 

Q. What do you understand by Moral Truth 1 

A. Moral Truth describes the relations which man, as a 
responsible being, sustains to his Creator and his fellow- 
beings. On these relations the distinctions of Good and 
Evil, Right and Wrong, are founded. These relations are 
also the sources of all the human affections. 

Q. What sciences arise immediately out of this department of Truth 1 
A. Theology and morality. 

Q. What do you understand by Intellectual Truth % 
A. Intellectual Truth describes Reason, its functions and 
laws. 

Q. What sciences arise immediately out of this department of Truth 1 

A. Logic and pure mathematics. 

Q. In relation to our fellow-beings, what duties are imposed on us by 
the obligations of Moral Truth ? 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 83 

A. Moral Truth forbids our utterance ot any thing as 
truth which we know to be false. In all our dealings and 
intercourse with others, we are forbidden to misrepresent 
or conceal any thing, which they have a right to know ; all 
our words and actions, so far as we speak or act at all, must 
be in strict conformity to fact and reality. All just prom- 
ises must be faithfully and punctually performed, all lawful 
contracts must be strictly adhered to and fulfilled. 

Q. When called upon to testify in a court of justice, we solemnly, and 
under the pains and penalties of perjury, pledge ourselves to do what ? 

A. To speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
the truth. 

Q. What does this obligation require us to do ? 

A. To state, with precision and fidelity, without the 
slightest bias for or against either party, all the facts and 
matters relating to the case on trial, of which we have either 
knowledge or belief. 

Q. What depends upon the observance of Moral Truth in human in- 
tercourse ? 

A. All confidence of man in man, and even society itself. 

Q. Ought parents and teachers to be especially vigilant and faithful in 
their endeavors to impress, deeply, on the minds of their children and 
pupils a proper sense of the importance of Moral Truth ? 

A. Moral Truth is the highest excellence in human char- 
acter, the only sure foundation of all that is truly great and 
good in human conduct. Every parent and every teacher, 
therefore, ought to do the utmost in their power to form the 



84 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

character of their children and pupils, in this respect, on the 
model of Washington, whose love and scrupulous regard 
for truth were so remarkable that even his school-fellows 
were accustomed to say of him, " Washington cannot lie." 
(See Wayland's Moral Science, 275 to 293 ; Whewell's Elements of 
Morality, vol. i., 183 to 184, 222 to 227.) 



SECTION VI. 

INDUSTRY. 



" Youth is especially the period of activity, and if the habit of mental econ- 
omy be not then formed it can rarely be afterward acquired. Without the 
active vitality of spring, we look in vain for the blooming vigor of summer, 
and the rich fruits of autumn. How weighty, then, the responsibility of youth, 
and how urgent the duty of every individual who possesses influence on the 
young, to cause all means in their power to bear upon the formation of the 
characters of those to whom society must look for new impulses and power ! 
Young men, stir up your strength ; your country looks to you, not merely 
for the maintenance of its greatness, but for the fuller development of its 
majesty as mistress of the world. Think, that you may act, and act worthily 
of your high vocation, as the transmitters and improvers of all that is noble 
in institution or intention. Remember, the means are in your hands of chang- 
ing the aspect of the whole world, and causing it to reflect the glory of heaven 
in its face. The machinery by which States and all their societies are to 
move onward is to be kept at work, and governed by your management and 
strength. It is not placed in your power for yourselves, nor by yourselves: 
you serve God, or you are called to serve. If you refuse, you serve "God's 
everlasting antagonist, and you know his wages. The Almighty has brought 
you into being, and made you men, that the business of humanity may bo 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. $5 

yours, as it is His. He demands your hearts and your hands, to co-operate 
with Omnipotence in the service of the Son of man and of God, that you may 
inherit together the glory that is coming. The world must be set in motion, 
both mechanically and religiously : therefore he gives you the steam-engine 
and the Bible, with which to regenerate mankind. Truth and engineering, 
science natural and science spiritual, are the only civilizers and reformers ; 
the one for the body, the other for the soul. If you would succeed you must 
use both, with a consciousness that all power is God's. He bids you deposit 
the lightning, that it may conduct your thoughts as rapidly as they arise, 
from land to land, and He requires you to take the light from heaven into 
your hearts, and speak it everywhere. Thus the wide earth shall be as if 
condensed into a chrysolite, with radiance streaming through it, and all its 
inhabitants shall be united in soul by divine knowledge, and feel that their 
homes are hanging upon heaven by bands of glory. All nature shall be spir- 
itualized to the apprehension of mankind, and they shall see, like angels, that 
the meaning of ell things is the mind of God. 

" All God's universe is in motion under His hand — move with it. Let the 
harmony of His purposes be yours. Let power be ruled by love : let the ac- 
tivities of that animating principle govern you, for if you do not, all the ele- 
ments that are so inscrutably active about you and within you will war against 
you, and whirl you into outer darkness. But your minds being regulated by 
obedience to the Divine Word, you will find all things working together for 
your good, and you will, in fact, be obedient to the very thought that, being 
spoken, brought light into existence, and thence all things ; and thus you will 
act at last as if constituted like it, by being really, and in spirit, united with 
the Word, that was God, and dwelt among us, and whose glory we beheld 
as full of grace and truth. Minds not thus submissive to Heaven become 
more miserable in proportion to their efforts. They may strive to be idle, 
but they will only be wretched. 

" The indolent disposition is not punishable by the laws of the United 
States, as it was by those of Athens and of Rome, yet it surely meets the 
misery it- merits, and, like every other indulgence in iniquity, bears within 
itself the elements of torment. Neglect of means will substantiate the final 
condemnation. ' Inasmuch as ye did it not,' will be the damning decision. 
Not to serve Him, before whose judgment-seat all must stand, is to serve 



86 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

the enemy of God and man. It is not mere waste of spirit and of power, but 
it is the employment of gifts against the Giver. 

" Young men who believe in Jesus, ' I write unto you, because ye are strong, 
and have overcome the wicked one! Consult the living oracles in all your 
movements. So surely as Providence has endowed you with vigor and social im- 
petuosity and power, so surely are you responsible for the use of those means 
by which society might be blessed by you. The energy and life-blood of 
society are in your veins, and if the body politic be stagnant or disordered it 
is from some defect in you — some unwillingness, to work as God would have you 
work. Whether a feverish delirium distract, or a perverted energy convulse 
the hearts of law -makers and laborers — whether the land languish like a 
swamp, or thrive like a well-cultivated field, will mainly depend upon the 
manner in which you think and act. Therefore look into history for wise ex- 
amples, and into your own relations to God and man for motives, for means. 
Your time is embryo eternity. Whether your activity shall be blessed or 
baneful, rests with your will — on your moral intelligence and conscience. 
What do you mean to do ? Trust not to your own judgment ; but let the 
experience of age and staid reflection regulate your energies, and then ad- 
vancement will be safe as well as certain. A glowing disposition, a sunny 
enthusiasm, a hearty devotedne.^s will only aggravate ruin and disappoint- 
ment, without a good cause and a sound discretion. Therefore let youth 
never think itself safe, and in the right way, until it has at least felt enough 
doubt concerning its own power of discernment to induce inquiry, and the 
right estimate of reverend and tried men. There is no escape from the con- 
sequences of misconduct, and their condemnation is the deepest who abuse 
advantages in the presumption of self-confidence. The Lofty One inhabiting 
eternity blesses none but the humble, and blesses them because they are in 
earnest in seeking and working out their salvation. They receive power 
from on high, and consume not the bounties of Heaven upon their lusts in the 
pride of a lying life. 

" Since man fell toil has been a necessity, and, therefore, so far a sorrow. 
The same amount of exertion which, when voluntary, is a pleasure, under 
compulsion becomes a pain. Yet, by setting the thoughts on the end and 
object of labor, rather than on the thing itself, we find the necessary exertion 
to be the direct means of tranquilizing both mind and body, while, at the 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. g7 

same time it increases and accomplishes our hopes. Thus, having fulfilled 
our daily toil, in the act of meditating on the sunshine of to-morrow, we 
peacefully close our eyes on to-day, without a doubt or a dream ; the dark- 
ness passes over us, and we awake in the light with new life in our limbs. 
By making labor an exchange for commodities, God has taken away much of 
the curse of the ground. He might have enslaved us all without redemption, 
but that He is love. We might have been driven as convicts, as we are, in 
chains to toil, without wages or reward, but that when He enjoined labor He 
also promised rest, and giving us six days for neighborly co-operation in our 
common weal, demands that we all meet Him together on the seventh. He 
has made the Sabbath for man, to teach him that the soul that comes to God 
ceases from his labors as to all trust in them ; and that, though his works 
follow him, it is into rest ; for the business of a worshiping spirit is performed 
without effort, and it is but as the activity of life infused into the body by 
the breath of the Creator. "Whenever this spirit of freedom and of power, 
from the consciousness that God inspires us, is not felt, there is bondage and 
the debasement of the drudge, even in attempts at worship. The Lord of the 
Sabbath Is the Lord of life and of liberty ; and wherever his authority is de- 
nied or not known, there the curse of slavery is felt, and the whole creation 
groans. No people can be blessed without keeping a holy-day — a day sacred 
to God ; for the animal nature will tyrannize and suffer, unless both the soul 
and the body enjoy their Sabbaths. All the functions of a man's life are or- 
dered with respect to weekly periods, and the habit of observing a seventh 
day, as a respite from toil, favors the regular distribution of vital power ; and 
the repose of a spirit retiring from worldly employment to the inner sanctu- 
ary, is like drawing a fresh supply from the fountain of health and salvation. 
It will be in vain for philanthropists to endeavor to teach gorgeous barbarians 
and tyrannical savages their own value and the value of their fellow-men &t 
any thing more than a marketable estimate, unless they first demonstrate 
the fact that the Almighty has put a price upon each soul, and values it as 
that of His own Son. Let men know and feel the meaning of the Lord's 
day, as the promise and pledge of the glorious rest of regeneration into spir- 
itual activity and life to which all are called to aspire, and then, and not till 
then, will humanity be developed as the spirit of true industry, and neigh- 
borhood, and joy. 



gg EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

" But work on earth is the business of man. Each in bis sphere has some- 
thing to do, and happy is he who does it with all his heart as unto God, and 
not to man. The only care essential to a right industry is to see that one is 
doing his duty. The encouragement to exertion is to feel that we are not 
working under a task-master, to make bricks without straw, but that each of 
us is at liberty, or should be, to do the best with the ability that God gives 
us, under the conviction that we shall not be condemned for deficiency, unless 
we willingly and indolently abuse the abundance of means bestowed on us. 
There is a ministry for every man ; we must all serve ; and all that is neces- 
sary to render our service acceptable to God, and really serviceable to man, 
is a right spirit in our place. Any one who has the power of acting, or, I 
may say, even of willing, has the power of acting, speaking, or praying, in 
such a way as shall do some good to somebody. Every one exerts an influ- 
ence by his very thoughts. By right thinking, we shall use every opportu- 
nity of so working as necessarily to do the best, under the circumstances, for 
the good of society and ourselves. 

" Industry is essentially social. No man can improve either himself or his 
neighbor without neighborly help; and to better the world, is to set the 
world to work together. Every useful invention has been carried out and 
perfected by the co-operation of many minds, or by the successive applica- 
tions of varied genius to the same objects, age after age. The mechanic must 
aid the philosopher, or he must stand still in his demonstrations ; and the 
philosopher must aid the mechanic, or he will work and work without wis- 
dom. The astronomer needs his telescope, and the chemist his materials and 
apparatus. The sciences hang on the arts, and the arts on the sciences. But 
without the philosophy from Heaven, neither art nor science would look off 
the earth, and industry would die a natural death and rise no more, for reli- 
gion alone is the living spirit of human sociality and power. 

' If any strength we have, it is to ill ; 
Rut all the good is God's, both power, and also will.' 

Spenser's Fairy Queen. 

"Even those who can do nothing but receive help, can receive it in such a 
manner as to bless the helper, if only by causing him to feel that it is indeed 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 89 

more blessed to give than to receive. A soul sensible of realities always sets 
itself and others to work to some purpose. There is always hope in true 
activity ; the will works in the brain and muscles of a man who works, be- 
cause he wills and knows what lie is about, and why he is busy. 

" Most persons have an activity of impulse, a sort of childish playfulness, 
in wasting energy. Such persons please themselves and benefit others only 
by accident, and because they cannot help it. There is no steadiness with- 
out an aim, and unless the aim be a worthy one, the spirit does not fully 
nerve the arm. All evil disposition is impulsive, and therefore fitful, foolish, 
wayward. It may be obstinate, but it cannot be truly persevering, since it 
does not look to the end, but merely goes on pleasing itself to the best of its 
ability, as suitable objects may happen to offer excitement and inducement. 
It cannot be hopeful in a rational sense, because no man can di>?over a rea- 
son for hoping that ultimate success, in a satisfactory sense, can crown a bad 
action, much less a habit of such action. Hence it follows, that healthy and 
hopeful activity is impossible, without an approvable motive ; in short, there 
is no blessing for a bad will. A good and honest intention is blessed already, 
and works with increasing blessing, since what is consistent with the real 
welfare of one's neighbor is in keeping with one's own safety, because it is 
according to the law of God, which is the law of blessing to all who will 
obey it. Good intentions, then, set men properly to work with what means 
they possess. Therefore be strong, man of poverty. Believe in the Giver 
of strength and opportunity, and you shall feel the seeds of an immortal vigor 
growing in your veins. See that you pray and live, desiring exactly what 
the All-wise knows to be best, and then you will bear your burden with a 
light heart, and sometimes look up into heaven so joyously as to forget that 
the earth must be dug into, even to make a grave. Tt is not real good 
intent, but hypocrisy that pave3 the pit of darkness, while sincere, love-born 
purpose lays the golden pavement of the city of God. 

" Every individual should feel that he has some business that must be 
blessed, if he use his means for the best, since the God of" Providence calls for 
exertion only because he grants the ability and intends a happy result, which 
nmst arrive. We should therefore act as integral members of a whole com- 
pany, where God is overseer, and then we shall find also a time for rest as 
well as labor, and the soul will indeed enjoy a perpetual Sabbath of its own, 



90 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

in the peace of that faith which animates it with Divine energy and -with 
hopes that terminate only in the eternal happiness to which they point." 

G. Moore. 



Q. What is the sixth rule of Moral Education ? 
A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the laws 
which regulate and govern my relations to industry. 

Q. What do you understand by industry? 

A. Industry implies the constant and regular application 
of the human powers and faculties to the proper perform- 
ance of all the appropriate duties of every station of life. 
Industry is thus seen to be of a three-fold character, cor- 
responding to the three primary departments of the human 
powers and faculties. 

Q. What are the proofs that man is under moral obligations to be 
industrious 1 

A. His nature and organization are such, that activity is 
indispensable to his health, ability, and general well-being.. 
Besides, the Creator has pointedly and positively com- 
manded man, that is, every man, to be industrious : " Six 

DAYS SHALT THOU LABOR, AND DO ALL THY WORK." The 

powers and faculties are the talents which the Creator has 
intrusted to man, and, with regard to them all, His per- 
petual injunction, through His word and through His 
works, is, occupy. 

Q. What further proof is there that industry is a moral duty ? 

A. Justice forbids the appropriation of any thing be- 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 91 

yond the free and spontaneous gifts of the Creator, without 
promptly rendering full and fair equivalents for every thing 
that is taken. Now, to the great and overwhelming masses 
of humanity, while the present order of the world shall 
remain, any other equivalent than labor is utterly impos- 
sible. In labor, therefore, or in money, cash in hand, not 
promises to pay, man is morally bound to give full and just 
equivalents for every thing he receives from his fellow- 
man. In the same way and manner, justice further binds 
him to give full and fair equivalents for every benefit he 
receives from the government under which he lives. 

Q. May not those persons who possess money fully adequate to their 
support and the prompt payment of just demands, be properly excused 
from labor? 

A. The necessity of orderly activity to general health and 
well-being has been already seen to be universal. No hu- 
man being can possess health without it. Every form of ac- 
tion is either virtuous and saving, or vicious and destruc- 
tive. Any form of activity productive of general good to 
the individual and to the community is good, and every 
form of activity producing the opposite results is evil. Now, 
the positive command of the Creator is, to do good and avoid 
evil ; until, therefore, this command shall be annulled, the 
duty of industry will remain imperative upon all. 

Q. How does industry contribute to the general welfare of individuals, 
families, and States 1 

A. There is no excellence without labor. Ability, knowl- 
edge, influence, wealth, and power, all flow from industry ; 



92 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

and without its continual and general observance, all 
sources of human comfort and happiness would speedily and 
finally cease. All the productive energies of the human 
race, directed by science and aided by the most perfect ma- 
chines, cannot draw two years' sustenance from the earth 
by one year's labor; besides, most articles fit for human 
food are perishable, and cannot be preserved from year to 
year. 

Q. If industry be thus a necessity resulting from the order of crea- 
tion, a moral duty positively commanded by the Creator of all, how can 
you explain the aversion and general neglect of it by so many persons? 

A. Ko other explanation can be given than that the edu- 
cation of such persons has been wholly irrational, vicious, 
and criminally defective. Besides, it argues a false stand- 
ard of respectability, repugnant to every principle of rea- 
son, justice, and religion in every community, wherever 
such persons are numerous. 

Q. What is the duty of the State with regard to the industry of its 
citizens? 

A. The State is under positive moral obligation to make 
adequate provision for the thorough general education of 
all its citizens, by which the ability to labor will be fully 
developed, and the will to be industrious firmly established. 
Wherever, therefore, the State has faithfully observed this 
sacred and high obligation to its citizens, there will ordi- 
narily, in a free, republican country, of ample territory, be 
little difficulty in finding ample opportunity for honorable 
and productive labor for all honest and intelligent persons. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 93 

Q. Ought the necessity and duty of regular and persevering industry 
to be generally and pointedly set forth, and positively enjoined in the 
families and schools of the United States ? 

A. " There is no excellence without labor," ought to be 
conspicuously inscribed in capitals in all appropriate places, 
in every family and school throughout our ample country ; 
and the duty of constant, regular, persevering, and produc- 
tive industry, ought to be unremittingly and pungently set 
forth and enforced, until the conviction of its necessity and 
importance has been ineffaceably impressed on the soul, and 
made efficient by the firmly established habits of active 
life. Every child and youth ought to feel that the appointed 
lesson and task for each hour, and each day, can be no more 
omitted than the appropriate meals and hours for refresh- 
ment and recreation. Every person ought to know and to 
feel that to be idle is to be ineffably disgraced. 

Q. Are all modes of virtuous industry honorable ? 

A. It is morally impossible that they can be otherwise. 
Every person in the way of duty is a laborer in the vine- 
yard of the Most High, and there is not a single place in 
all the infinite ramifications of His service that is not a 
post of honor. 

Q. What did Milton say of the honor of labor ? 

A. " Man hath his daily work of body or of mind 
Appointed, which declares his dignity 
And the regard of Heaven on all his ways. 1 ' 

Q. What did Audubon, the great American ornithologist, say of the 
efficacy of labor? 



94 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

A. That he had no confidence whatever in that vague 
and indefinable something called genius, but that he had 
boundless faith in the power of constant, well-directed effort. 

Q. What distinguished American Statesman, Philosopher, and Sage 
was remarkable for his industry ? 

A. Franklin. By constant, well-directed, persevering, 
and all-subduing industry, he reared the well-adjusted, com- 
pacted, massive proportions of that magnificent character 
whose fame now fills the world. Had he not been one of 
the most industrious of men, it would never have been truly 
said of him, that "He snatched the lightnings from 
Heaven, and the scepter from tyrants." 



SECTION VII. 

EXAMPLE. 



" To parents it is a most important fact that children perceive the beautiful 
before the good, and the good before the true. It is so early that we can 
scarcely tell the time when it commences, that they are attracted by spark- 
ling colors, and by striking forms. Nothing can be more interesting than to 
watch the dawning sense and intellect of the child in commune with the ex- 
ternal world. How exuberant its delight ! How its whole face kindles and 
speaks, long before its tongue is able to utter articulate words ! Then, if we 
are wise, can we begin the education of the child, by unfolding in all fullness 
and harmony its feeling of beauty. And having done so, we shall come with 
tenfold power and success to the education of its feelings of the good. And 
having educatod the feelings of the good, we shall be prepared to pursue the 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 95 

same process with the feeling of the true. The only education of the feel- 
ing of the true which children usually obtain, is the command never to tell a 
falsehood. But a child has no definite notion of a falsehood when spoken of 
in this manner. It becomes a thing which it is afraid to tell because it is for- 
bidden, because it is girt with terrors which it fears to encounter ; but it has 
no accurate conception of the guilt thereof. Whereas, if we so deepened and 
refined the sentiment of the beautiful that the child never could be otherwise 
than good, and if we so deepened and refined the sentiment of the good that 
the child could never be otherwise than true, then we should be preparing 
for society that which society much wants — men and women in whom the 
good, the true, and beautiful would be one, and whose hearts would instinct- 
ively bound up to the Creator whenever they beheld the stars of the sky, 
or the flowers of the earth." W. Maccall. 

"As our senses are constructed on temporal principles, so also our memo- 
ries furnish their stores of ideas to the demands of life, and reason with rela- 
tion to time and the action of our muscles ; thus we move in keeping with 
the movements of objects around us, and thus our intercourse with those we 
love is modified by motion, for motion is the only means of expressing feeling 
and power. From this universal fact we learn the importance of wisely con- 
trolling our visible actions, as they may influence the feelings of others, or 
embody to their view the state of our own souls ; not that we should study 
to be hypocrites, but that we should be careful to attain such a condition of 
thought and affection that its natural manifestation in our movements should 
bring others into better sympathy, or at least demonstrate to the apprehen- 
sion of the depraved that there is a nobler mode of energy and action than 
usually prevails among themselves. 

" It is the soul which animates the features and causes them to present a 
living picture of each passion, so that the inmost agitations of the heart be- 
come visible in a moment, and the wish that would seek concealment betrays 
its presence and its power in the vivid eye, while the "blood kindles into 
crimson with a thought that burns along the brow. It is this which diffuses 
a sweet serenity and rest upon the visage when our feelings are tranquilized, 
and our thoughts abide with heaven, like ocean in a calm, reflecting the 
peaceful glories of the cloudless skies. This indwelling spirit of power blends 



QQ EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

our features in uuison and harmony, and awakes ' the music breathing from 
the face,' when in association with those we love, and heart answering to 
heart, we live in sympathy, while memory and hope repose alike in smiles 
upon the bosom of enjoyment. It is a flame from heaven, purer than Prome- 
thean fire, that vivifies and energizes the breathing form. It is an immaterial 
essence, a being that quickens matter and imparts life, sensation, motion, to 
the intricate frame-work of our bodies ; which wills when we act, attends 
when we perceive, looks into the past when we reflect, and, not content with 
the present, shoots with all its aims and all its hopes into futurity that is for- 
ever dawning upon it. 

" Young children are strongly affected by facial expression, and they learn 
the features of passion long before they learn any other part of its language. 
Their imitative faculties are so active, and their sympathies so acute, that 
they unconsciously assume the expression of face which they are accustomed 
to see and feel. Hence the importance that children be habituated to kindli- 
ness, beauty, and intellect in those with whom they are domesticated. Even 
their playthings and pictures should be free from depraved meaning and 
violent expression, if we wish them to be lovely ; and all the hideous, gro- 
tesque, and ludicrous portraiture which now vulgarize the public mind, should 
be excluded from the nursery. The Gothic and superstitious condition of 
mind will return with the prevalence of pictorial deformities, and the demand 
for the unnatural will increase with the continuance of degraded art; for 
which deforming epidemic there can be no remedy but in familiarizing the 
common mind with nobler objects. 

" In the very nature of a living spirit it may be more possible that heaven 
and earth should pass away, than that a single thought should be loosened or 
lost from that living chain of causes, to all whose links, conscious or uncon- 
scious, the free will — our only absolute itself — is coextensive and co-pres- 
ent." 

" How awful is the conviction, that the book of judgment is that of our life, 
:u which every idle word is recorded, and that no power but His who made 
the soul can obliterate our ideas and our deeds from our remembrance, or blot 
out transgressions and purify our spirits from the actual indwelling of evil 
thoughts 1" G-. Moore. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 97 

Q. What is the seventh rule of Moral Education ? 

A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the 
laws which regulate and govern my relations to example. 

Q. What doctrine was taught by some of the ancient philosophers ? 

A. That things were constantly impressing their images 
upon the things by which they were surrounded, and in 
like manner receiving impressions. 

Q. What remarkable modern discovery has perfectly demonstrated 
the truth of such a doctrine ? 

A. The Daguerreotype process, by which the images 
that are constantly passing off from all objects may be re- 
ceived upon metallic plates, and become permanently visi- 
ble. The heavens are impressing their images on the earth, 
and the earth is constantly delineating itself upon the heav- 
ens ; orb impresses orb, and man graves his own image ' 
on his fellow-man. 

Q. Is there reason to suppose that impressions thus made upon the 
tablet of the soul are permanent in their duration, or do they forever pass 
away at the very moment the soul ceases to be conscious of their presence ? 

A. Reason and revelation agree in asserting that abso- 
lute forgetfulness, or obliteration, is impossible, and that all 
the events of our history are written in our living spirits, 
and, whether seen or unseen, will there remain forever, un- 
less removed by the act of a merciful Omnipotence. It is 
true, that a thousand incidents will spread a veil between 
our present consciousness and the record on the soul, but 
there the record rests, waiting the judgment of God. These 
sublime facts deeply warn us as to the manner in which we 
7 



98 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

suffer our faculties to be engaged, not only as their exercise 
affects ourselves, but also in their influence on the destiny 
of others. 

Q. What general law do the facts and principles already enumerated 
in this section explain and illustrate ? 

A. That like ever produces like. Beauty produces beau- 
ty, deformity produces deformity, virtue produces virtue, 
and vice produces vice. 

Q. Admitting the truth of the foregoing positions, what does example 
become? 

A. The most important and efficient of all possible agents 
in modifying and forming character. Indeed, the great 
and enduring lesson taught by every person, is the accus- 
tomed example of the life. 

Q. Whose example is most influential in forming the characters of 

children? 

A. That of parents. So powerful and irresistible is this 
influence, that most children, up to the age of ten or twelve 
years, regard the example of their parents as the absolute 
standard of human excellence, and the precise indication of 
human duty. How tremendous the thought that all the 
vices, errors, and deficiencies of parents are probably to de- 
scend through their children for indefinite periods — cer- 
tainly to the third and fourth generations ! 

Q. Whose example, next after that of parents, has most influence upon 
the character of children and youth ? 

A. That of their teachers. The example of the teachers 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 99 

is the greatest and most important of all lessons ever taught 
in the schools. May teachers ever be seriously impressed 
with the fact that they are stamping deeply upon the im- 
pressible souls of their pupils their own character. Like 
that of all other persons, the countenance of the teacher is 
the index of the soul, and on it is legibly written both ex- 
cellences and defects, however great either may be ; and 
all their pupils, however numerous, are daily and hourly 
reading this living page, and receiving impressions from it 
never to be obliterated or changed. 

Q. What ought ever to illuminate every human face, but more especi- 
ally the faces of parents and teachers ? 

A. Cheerfulness. This divine expression of the " human 
face divine," ever results from an humble yet firm con- 
sciousness of duty well performed, and like the genial light 
and warmth of the sun, gladdens and blesses all around. 
Probably there is no other way in which a person can either 
so happily or unhappily affect the feelings of those around 
him as by the habitual expression of his countenance. So 
baleful are the effects of a sad countenance, that our Saviour 
positively forbade it to his disciples. 

Q. How is the importance of either a good or bad example in some 
measure determined or estimated % 

A. By the number of persons who will be affected by it. 

Q. Where, then, will a good example do most good, and a bad exam- 
ple most evil ? 

A. In cities and large villages: for this reason, induce- 
ments to the performance of duty should be more multi- 



100 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

plied, and arrangements for suppressing vice and immorality 
ought to be more complete and summary, than in places 
not so densely populated. 

Q. Of all countries in the world, what one will be most benefited by 
good, and most injured by bad example? 

A. The United States ; because in no other are the lib- 
erty and ability to imitate so great and general. 

Q. What illustrious example of human excellence, worthy of perpeturl 
imitation, is found in the history of the United States ? 

A. "Washington. His whole history, from early youth 
to the close of his life, is filled with more appropriate les- 
sons and examples of human duty than that of any other 
man, ancient or modern. 

Q. How has a distinguished and accomplished historian sketched the 
character and labors of the youthful Washington ? 

A. " At the very time of the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle 
the woods of Virginia sheltered the youthful George Wash- 
ington, the son of a widow. Born by the side of the Poto- 
mac, beneath the roof of a Westmoreland farmer, almost 
from infancy his lot had been the lot of an orphan. No 
academy had welcomed him to its shades, no college had 
crowned him with its honors : to read, to write, to cipher — 
these had been his degrees in knowledge. And now, at 
sixteen years of age, in quest of an honest maintenance, en- 
countering intolerable toil ; cheered onward by being able 
to write to a school-boy friend, ' Dear Richard, a doubloon 
is my constant gain every day, and sometimes six pistoles ;' 
4 himself his own cook, having no spit but a forked stick, 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 101 

no plate but a large chip ;' roaming over spurs of the Alle- 
ghanies, and along the banks of the Shenandoah ; alive to 
nature, and sometimes spending the best of the day in ad- 
miring the trees and richness of the land ; ' among skin-clad 
savages, with their scalps and rattles,' or uncouth emi- 
grants, ' that would never speak English ;' rarely sleeping 
in a bed, holding a bear-skin a splendid couch ; glad of a 
resting-place for the night upon a little hay, straw, or fodder, 
and often camping in the forests, where the place nearest 
the fire was a happy luxury : this stripling surveyor, in the 
woods, with no companion but his unlettered associates, 
and no implements of science but his compass and chain, 
contrasted strangely with the imperial magnificence of the 
Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. And yet God had selected, 
not Kaunitz, nor Newcastle, not a monarch of the house of 
Hapsburg, nor of Hanover, but the Virginia stripling, to 
give an impulse to human affairs, and, as far as events can 
depend on an individual, had placed the rights and the des- 
tinies of countless millions in the keeping of the widow's 
son." — Bancroft's Hist U. S., vol. iii. pp. 467, 468. 

Q. How does one of the greatest logicians and orators of the United 
States and of the world describe the matured character of Washington ? 

A. " America has furnished to the world the character 
of Washington. And if our American institutions had 
done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to 
the respect of mankind. "Washington ! ' First in war, first 
in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen !' Wash- 
ington is all our own ! 



1Q2 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

" The enthusiastic veneration and regard in which the 
people of the United States hold him, prove them to he 
worthy of such a countryman ; while his reputation abroad 
reflects the highest honor on his country and its institutions. 
I would cheerfully put the question to any of the intelli- 
gence of Europe and the world, what character of the cen- 
tury, upon the whole, stands out on the relief of history 
most pure, most respectable, most sublime; and I doubt 
not that, by a suffrage approaching to unanimity, the an- 
swer would be — Washington. 

"This structure,* by its uprightness, its solidity, its dura- 
bility, is no unfit emblem of his character. His public vir- 
tue and public principles were as firm as the earth on 
which it stands — his personal motives as pure as the serene 
heaven in which its summit is lost. But, indeed, though 
a fit, it is an inadequate emblem. Towering high above 
the column which our hands have builded, beheld not by 
the inhabitants of a single city or a single State, ascends 
the colossal grandeur of his character and his life. In all 
the constituents of the one — in all the acts of the other — in 
all its titles to immortal love, admiration, and renown — it 
is an American production. 

" It is the embodiment and vindication of our transatlan- 
tic liberty. Born upon our soil, of parents also born upon 
it ; never, for a moment, having had a sight of the Old 
World; instructed, according to the modes of his time, only 
in the spare but wholesome elementary knowledge which 

* The Bunker Hill Monument. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 103 

our institutions provide for the children of the people ; grow- 
ing up beneath, and penetrated by, the genuine influence 
of American society ; growing up amid our expanding but 
not luxurious civilization ; partaking in our great destiny 
of labor, our long contest with unreclaimed nature and un- 
civilized man ; our agony of glory, the war of Independence, 
our great victory of peace, the formation of the Union, and 
the establishment of the Constitution ; he is all, all our 
own ! That crowded and glorious life, 

• Where multitudes of virtues passed along, 
Each pressing foremost in the mighty throng. 
Contending to be seen, then making room 
For greater multitudes that were to come :' 

that life was the life of an American citizen. 

" I claim him for America. In all the perils, in every 
darkened moment of the State, in the midst of the re- 
proaches of enemies and the misgivings of friends, I turn 
to that transcendent name for courage and for consolation. 
To him who denies or doubts whether our fervid liberty 
can be combined with law, with order, with the security of 
property, with the pursuits and advancement of hapjnness ; 
to him who denies that our institutions are capable of pro- 
ducing exaltation of soul and the passion of true glory ; to 
him who denies that we have contributed any to the stock 
of great lessons and great examples ; — to all these I reply, 
by pointing to Washington !" — Daniel Webster. 



104 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

SECTION VIII. 

PATRIOTISM. 

The great sentiment of Alcaeus, so beautifully presented to us 
by Sir William Jones, is absolutely indispensable to the construc- 
tion and maintenance of our political systems : — 

" "What constitutes a State ? 

Not high-raised battlements or labor'd mound, 
Thick wall or moated gate ; 

Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crown' d ; 
Not bays and broad-arm' d ports, 

"Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; 
Not starr'd and spangled courts, 

Where low-brow'd baseness wafts perfume to pride. 
No — men, high-minded men, 

With powers as far above dull brutes endued, 
In forest brake, or den, 

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude ; 
Men who their duties know — 

But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain ; 
Prevent the long-aim'd blow, 

And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain ; — 
These constitute a State ; 

And Sovereign Law, that State's collected will 
O'er thrones and globes elate 

Sits empress, crowning good — repressing ill.' 



Q. What is the eighth rule of Moral Education ? 
A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the laws 
which regulate and govern my relations to patriotism. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 105 

Q. What do you understand by patriotism 1 

A. An ardent and rational attachment to the country of 
my birth or adoption ; a prompt and cheerful obedience to 
its laws, and a solemn pledge to sacrifice both my property 
and life, whenever duty requires, in defense of its liberty 
and independence. 

Q. What patriotic duties are imperatively required of the children and 
youth of the United States 1 

A. The children and youth of the United States are un- 
der imperative obligations to study with critical accuracy, 
and unyielding perseverance, the history of their country, 
until all its leading facts are distinctly apprehended and 
classified, and the great practical truths resulting from them 
perfectly perceived. 

Q. How ought the history of the United States to be studied ? 

A. With constant and accurate reference to both its 
geography and chronology, with full and accurate maps and 
charts always at hand. 

Q. What historical information is given by geography ? 
A. It gives the place where the actions described were 
performed. 

Q. What information is given by chronology ? 

A. It gives the precise date or year in which the events 
described occurred. 

Q. What two ideas are indispensably necessary to a distinct appre- 
hension of any historical fact 1 



10$ EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

A. The place where, and the teste when : geography 
gives you the former, chronology gives yon the latter; 
geography and chronology, therefore, have been aptly and 
truly described as the two eyes of history. 

Q. What preliminary works ought to be read by a person who wishes 
a thorough knowledge of both the body and spirit of the institutions of 
the United States ? 

A. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Bo- 
nian Empire, Hume's History of England, continued by 
Smollett and Bisset, Macaulay's History of England, and 
Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History. These are all standard 
works ; they are also English classics of a high order of 
excellence, and they ought to be placed in every family, 
school, and public library in the country. The rivalry ex- 
isting between publishing houses at this time affords an 
opportunity to purchase most of them at a cost almost 
nominal. 

Q. What maps and charts ought to find a place in every family and 
school of the United States? 

A. An accurate map of the United States, the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and an accurate map of the State in 
which the family and school are situated. 

Q. What can you say of the geography of the United States ? 

A. The territory of the United States embraces the cen- 
tral and most important portion of aSTorth America. It is 
situated between the parallels of 30 and 50 degrees of 
North Latitude, and between the meridians of 66 and 126 
degrees of West Longitude, from the meridian of Greenwich. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 107 

It is bounded north by British America, east by the At- 
lantic Ocean, south by the Gulf of Mexico and Mexico, and 
west by the Pacific Ocean. Its area is 3,314,335 square 
miles. 

This vast territory, in size nearly equal to the entire con- 
tinent of Europe, is naturally separated into three Grand 
Divisions, namely: The Atlantic Slope, described by the 
rivers flowing eastwardly from the Alleghany Mountains 
into the Atlantic Ocean. "With the exception of the cotton 
lands in its southern part, Commerce and Manufactures 
must always be the leading interests of this Grand Division 
of the United States. 

The Pacific Slope is described by the rivers flowing west- 
wardly from the Pocky Mountains into the Pacific Ocean. 
Beyond the development of the richest mines of Gold that 
have yet been discovered on the globe, this Division is yet 
but very imperfectly explored. Its natural configuration 
plainly indicates that, in connection with Mining, Commerce 
and Manufactures are destined to become its controlling in- 
terests. 

Bounded by the great American chain of lakes on the 
north, the Alleghany Mountains on the east, by the Gulf 
of Mexico on the south, and the Pocky Mountains on the 
west, is the matchless basin of the Mississippi River. At 
its southern boundary this valley is from eight to ten hun- 
dred miles in width, and it gradually expands from the 
Gulf of Mexico, until at its northern limit it becomes 
nearly 2000 miles wide. The longest rivers on the globe 



108 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

have their sources and terminations in this unequaled val- 
ley. The Mississippi itself is 3600 miles in length ; its 
general course is from north to south, passing through nearly 
twenty degrees of latitude, and of course through several 
climates ; it thus forms the natural, perpetual, and magnifi- 
cent bond of union between the North and the South, 
w T hich both the ingenuity and madness of man will forever 
labor in vain to sunder. From the mouth of the Mississippi 
to the source of the Missouri, its longest and mightiest 
western tributary, is 4500 miles. From the mouth of the 
Mississippi to the sources of the Alleghany and Mononga- 
hela, whose junction forms the Ohio, the greatest eastern 
branch of the Mississippi, is more than 2500 miles. Be- 
sides these magnificent branches of the Mississippi, there 
fall into it from the w r est the Arkansas and Red rivers, each 
of which is from 1500 to 2000 miles in length ; add to 
these almost countless other rivers, from four to ten hun- 
dred miles long ; add to the Ohio on the east, the Illinois 
500, the Tennessee 1100 miles in length, and almost 
innumerable other rivers, from 200 to 500 miles long, and 
you have some faint conception of that mighty aggregation 
of rivers, which the Indians, with their accustomed point 
and felicity, named the Mighty Father of Waters. Here. 
then, formed by the Creator himself, are 50,000 miles of 
Inland Navigation, much of it amply sufficient to float the 
heaviest tonnage, and all of it admirably adapted to steam- 
boat navigation. This unequaled valley, the most wonder- 
ful feature of earth, is situated wholly in the middle re- 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 109 

gions of the Northern Temperate Zone, and, when cultiva- 
ted and subdued by science, industry, and art, will be as 
remarkable for its general salubrity as it now is for its ex- 
haustless fertility. In the possession of every natural ele- 
ment of human happiness, prosperity, and power, no other 
portion of the globe of equal extent makes the slightest 
approaches to the Yalley of the Mississippi. It has ample 
means, when properly administered by Religion, Science? 
and Art, to sustain in unequaled abundance of every ne- 
cessary, comfort, and even luxury of life, a population of 
300,000,000 of people. The entire population of America 
and Europe could not consume the breadstuffs which it 
might with the greatest ease produce annually. However 
true the doctrine of Malthus, that " there are always more 
mouths than bread" may be in Europe, it is downright 
falsehood in the United States. God be praised, that here, 
for centuries and millenniums to come, if our people do 
not forget the God of their fathers, and their own duties, 
it will always be in their power to reverse the maxim of 
Malthus, and forever to read truly, " In the United States 

THE BREAD IS ALWAYS IN ADVANCE OF THE MOUTH." If, there- 
fore, the Atlantic and Pacific Slopes have been assigned by 
the Creator for the homes of Merchant Princes, he has also 
designated the Yalley of the Mississippi as the natural and 
perpetual domain of the Monarchs of Agriculture. 

Q. What are some of the statistics cited by Hon. Daniel Webster in 
his speech at the laying the Corner-Stone of the Extension of the Cap- 
itol, to show the unequaled growth of the United States 1 



HO EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

A. Those contained in the following Table : viz. 

1793. 1851. 

Number of States, 15 81 

Representatives and Senators in Congress, 135 295 

Population of the United States, 3,929,328 23,267,498 

Boston, 18,038 136,871 

Baltimore, 13,503 169,054 

Philadelphia 42,520 409,045 

New York, (city,) 33,121 515,507 

" Washington — 40,075 

Amount of receipts into Treasury, §5,720,624 $43,774,848 

Amount of expenditures of U. States, 7,529,575 39,355,268 

Amount of Imports, 31,000,000 178,138,318 

Amount of Exports, 26,109,000 151,898,720 

Amount of Tonnage, 520,764 3,535,454 

Area of the United States, 805,461 3,314,365 

Rank and file of the army 5,120 10,000 

Militia, (enrolled,) — 2,000,456 

Navy of the United States, (vessels,) None 76 

Navy, Armament, (ordnance,) — 2,012 

Number of treaties and conventions with foreign 

powers 9 90 

Number of light-houses and light-boats, 7 372 

Expenditures for do., §12,061 $529,265 

Area of the first Capitol building, (in sq. feet,)... — 14,641 

Area of the present Capitol, (including extension,) — 4 J acres 

Lines of railroads, (in miles,) — 8,500 

Lines of Telegraphs, — 15,000 

Number of post-offices, 209 21,551 

Number of miles of post-route, 5,642 178,672 

Amount of revenue from post-offices 8104,747 85,552,971 

Ami of expenditures in post-office department,. 872,040 85,212,953 

Number of miles of mail transportation,.... — 46,541,423 

Miles of railroad, — 8,500 

Public libraries, 35 694 

Number of volumes in do., 75,000 2,201,632 

School libraries, — 10,000 

Number of volumes in do., — 2,000,000 

Q. What great State Papers ought to be committed to memory by all 

the children of the United States, but especially by every boy and every 
voter ? 

A. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. HI 

of the United States, and the Constitution of the State in 
which the learners live. 

Q. What are some of the great fundamental political truths solemnly 
declared and set forth in the Declaration of Independence ? 

A. " "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all 
men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain unalienable Rights ; that among 
these are llfe, llberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; 
that to secure these rlghts, governments are instituted 
among men, derivlng their just powers from the consent 
of the governed ; that whenever any form of govern- 
ment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of 
the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new 
government, laying its foundation on such principles, and 
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem 
most ldxely to effect their safety and happiness." 

Q. Have these great truths become firmly and permanently incorpora- 
ted in the thoughts and institutions of the people of the United States ? 

A. To a far greater extent than among any other people, 
ancient or modern ; still, they are daily developing them- 
selves in further and more perfect practical forms. 

Q. What is peculiar and extraordinary in the political institutions of the 
United States % 

A. They are absolutely without models ; nothing essen- 
tially like them has ever before existed among any people. 

Q. Where may a type of the great organic idea which led to their for- 
mation be found ? 



H% EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

A. In the heavens only ; the organization, movements, 
and controlling forces of the solar system are the best of all 
possible expositions and commentaries on the Constitutions 
of the United States. The Constitution of the United States 
represents the Centripetal Force ; the Constitutions of the 
several States represent the Centrifugal Force ; and, between 
these two, the political orbs move with the same order and 
regularity as do their types in the celestial heavens ; and 
there necessarily need be no more jarring and clashing in 
the one than in the other. And if the people of the United 
States remain faithful in the performance of their duties, 
their political institutions will flourish in primeval vigor and 
purity until these heavens and this earth shall have passed 
away. 

Q. What are the two great elementary ideas of the free institutions oi 
the United States? 

A. The Political Equality of All Men, and the abso- 
lute Sovereignty of the People. 

Q. In order to intelligently apprehend these two ideas, and to embody 
the great truths flowing from them in proper practical forms, what must 
the people do ? 

A. They must thoroughly learn, and actually adopt, as 
the chief corner-stone of their governmental system, the 
great maxim which the monarchs of Europe have acted 
upon for the last thousand years. 

Q. What is that maxim ? 

A. " The Sovereign must be correctly and thoroughly 
informed." 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 113 

Q. Who is the Sovereign in the United States ? 
A. The People : not King Individual, but King Ma- 
jority. 

Q. What motto ought to be conspicuously inscribed on the coat of 
arms of every State in our Federal Union ? 

A. Something, in spirit and in form, similar to the fol- 
lowing : " Free schools and universal education, phys- 
ical, MORAL, AND INTELLECTUAL, FULL AND HARMONIOUS \ THE 
ONLY SURE BASIS OF POPULAR LIBERTY." 

" Q. What did Washington say of popular education ? 

A. " In proportion to the influence of popular opinion 
on the legislation and administration of a State, is it import- 
ant that that opinion shall be enlightened." 

Q. What did John Adams say of the necessity of popular education? 
A. " A Republic without education is a body without a 
soul." 

Q. What did Thomas Jefferson say with regard to popular educa- 
tion? 

A. " To the extent of giving to each child born in the 
State a thorough practical education, make the State schools 
absolutely free to all." 

Q. What did John Quincy Adams say of popular education ? 

A. "The people, correctly informed, will always do 
right." Correct information is the indispensable condition 
of right action. It is then, and then only, that it can with 
truth be said, " The voice of the people is the voice of 'God" 



H4 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

By our constitutions we have already given civil omnipo- 
tence to the ballot-boxes ; by our laws, we must now give 
sound education to every voter, or the grand experiment 
of free institutions and universal suffrage will result in the 
utter and hopeless destruction of the Republic. The only 
impregnable fortress of popular liberty is the common school 
system ; without this, all our other armaments and muni- 
tions will be vain ; but with it, a generous and patriotic 
people will be forever invincible. 

Q. What was De Witt Clinton's opinion of the duty of government 
with regard to popular education ? 

A. " The first duty of government, and the surest evi- 
dence of good government, is the encouragement of edu- 
cation. A general diffusion of knowledge is the precursor 
and protector of Republican institutions, and in it we must 
confide as the conservative power that will watch over our 
liberties, and guard them against fraud, intrigue, corrup- 
tion, and violence." 

Q. What was one of the first legislative enactments of the Pilgrim 
Fathers of New England in the first germ of a free State, the old 
colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts? 

A. " Within the jurisdiction of Tins colony, xo child, of 

ANT SEX, SHALL EVER BE PERMITTED TO GROW LP, UNLESS THAT 
CHILD SHALL BE TAUGHT BOTH TO READ AXD TO WORK." 

Q. What is the most important department of the State govern- 
ments 1 

A. That which has immediately in its charge the vital 
interest of general education. 



EDUCATION A£ CATECHISM. H5 

Q. How ought the educational department in each of the States to be 
organized I 

A. As far as can be done, with as direct and constant 
responsibility of all grades of officers in it, as now exists in 
the war department of the government of the United States. 
A board of education, with State, county, and town super- 
intendents of schools, ought to be established in every State. 
Annual and accurate reports ought to be made by all three 
grades of superintendents, in which the true state of edu- 
cation in the State shall be exhibited. These reports to be 
made in such form and with such statistical tables as the 
legislature or board of education may prescribe. 

Q. What strong reason now exists for peculiar activity and energy in 
the educational departments of all the States ? 

A. The annual and immense influx of emigrants from 
Europe, who, by the exceeding liberality of our laws, be- 
come voters almost as soon as they reach our shores. Ef- 
ficient arrangements must everywhere be made for bring- 
ing the children of these people immediately within the sal- 
utary influence of our Common schools. 

Q. After general education, what is the next department of govern- 
ment most directly interesting to the people ? 

A. The judicial department, or that which is charged 
with the public administration of justice. This comes daily 
and constantly in contact with the life, property, and busi- 
ness of great masses of the people ; and on its intelligence, 
purity, promptness, and impartiality the welfare of the com- 
munity ever has, and. ever will eminently depend. 



11 Q EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. Is the body of the law in the United States simple, certain, and 
easily to be understood, and well adapted to a speedy and impartial ad- 
ministration 1 

A. Far from it ; derived orginally from the law of Eu- 
ropean countries, it necessarily partakes of all the com- 
plexity, uncertainty, and technicality of the sources whence 
it was drawn. The plainest indications already exist that, 
as virtue and intelligence shall permeate the "body politic, 
a general and searching revision of the whole body of the 
law will be made, and, in the eloquent language of 
Brougham, who, almost better than any man living, knows 
the defects of the law, and the imperative necessity of its 
reform, it will be hereafter said of the people of the United 
States, that they " found the law dear, and left it cheap ; 
found it a sealed book — left it a living letter; found it the 
patrimony of the rich — left it the inheritance of the poor ; 
found it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression — left 
it the staff of honesty and the shield of innocence." 

Q. Where do the people of the United States show their immediate 
control and direction of the government most plainly, or, in other words, 
where is the popular sovereignty most directly exhibited ? 

A. At the ballot-boxes ; and their sanctity and purity 
ought ever to be guarded by sleepless vigilance. To tam- 
per with voters in any form whatever, directly or indirectly, 
ought to be one of the gravest offenses known to the laws, 
and both the giver and taker of bribes for votes, be they in 
the form of money, spirits, or entertainments, ought to be 
forever disfranchised, and punished in such other form as 
may be due to justice and the safety of the public morals. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. H7 

Q. What consequence logically and necessarily results from the com- 
plete sovereignty of the people in the United States? 

A. The positive arid utter unjustifiability of mobs upon 
any and upon all occasions. Every law, usage, custom, and 
even constitutions themselves, are immediately changed or 
abrogated by the simple expression of the will of the ma- 
jority legally ascertained. "Whoever opposes the law, in 
any case, by force, becomes, by that very act, guilty of one 
of the gravest offenses known to the laws. Wherever, 
therefore, force is opposed to the execution of the law, the 
good and patriotic example of Massachusetts in the time of 
the Shay's rebellion, and of President "Washington, in the 
time of the whisky insurrection, ought forever to be imi- 
tated and followed ; and ail the military power of the State 
should be promptly resorted to, to vindicate the supremacy 
of the law and the sovereignty of the people. 

Q. What two primary and fundamental institutions do the policy and 
genius of a perfectly free and K,epublican State require to be kept at all 
times in the highest possible efficiency 1 

A. An educational system so complete and ample that 
not one child in the State shall be permitted to grow up with- 
out both a thorough knowledge of duty and competent ability 
to perform it ; and a thoroughly organized, well-appointed, 
and well-disciplined citizen soldiery, equal to the vindi- 
cation of the law on any and every point of attack. These 
are both primary institutions, and will be found indispen- 
sable to the safety and peace of every free Republican State, 
until the lion and the lamb shall literally lie down together. 



11$ EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. How ought all governmental powers to be always administered in 
the United States? 

A. So that every citizen, while loyal to the Constitutions 
and obedient to the laws, should always feel and know that 
he is protected and defended by the united strength and 
power of the whole people ; but that, at the very moment 
he defies and sets his foot upon the law, he is exposed to be 
overwhelmed and crushed with the celerity and sponta- 
neity of the thunderbolt. 

Q. Is the government of the United States a strong government % 
A. Mr. Jefferson, in one of his inaugural addresses, gave 
it as his opinion that it was the strongest government in 
the world, because it is the only one in which the whole 
people will promptly respond to the call of the law, and 
unite as one man in its defense. 

Q. To what may the action of government in the United States be not 
inaptly compared 1 

A. To the action of the physical atmosphere upon the 
earth and its inhabitants ; which, while it encircles them 
all, and keeps every thing in its proper place by its weight, 
pressing with a force of fifteen pounds upon every square 
inch of surface, acts so equally and with such admirable 
adaptation upon every point, that all things j>ossessing pow- 
ers of locomotion seem, and do really move with the utmost 
freedom and ease. 

Q. What did Washington say, in his Farewell Address, of the import- 
ance of our Federal Union ? 

A. "It is of infinite moment that you should properly 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. H9 

estimate the immense value of your national union to your 
collective and individual happiness ; that you should cher- 
ish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it ; 
accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as the pal- 
ladium of your political safety and prosperity ; watching 
for its preservation with jealous anxiety ; discountenancing 
whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any 
event, be abandoned ; and indignantly frowning upon the 
first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of 
our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties 
which now link together the various parts." 

Q. What did General Jackson say on this subject ? 

A. " Our Federal Union must and shall be preserved." 

Q. What opinion has Henry Clay expressed of the importance of our 
Federal Union? 

A. " To revolt against such a government, for any thing 
which has passed, would be so atrocious, and characterized 
by such extreme folly and madness, that we may search in 
vain for an example of it in human annals. We can look 
for its prototype only (if I may be pardoned for the allu- 
sion) to that diabolical revolt which, recorded on the pages 
of Holy Writ, has been illustrated and commemorated by 
the sublime genius of the immortal Milton. 

"Let us enjoy the proud consolation afforded by the con- 
viction that a vast majority of the people of the United 
States, true to their forefathers, true to themselves, and 
true to posterity, are firmly and immovably attached to. this. 
Union ; that they see in it a safe and sure, if not the sole 



120 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

guarantee of liberty, of internal peace, of prosperity, and of 
national happiness, progress, and greatness ; that its disso- 
lution would be followed by endless wars among ourselves, 
by the temptation or invitation to foreign powers to take 
part in them, and finally, by foreign subjugation, or the 
establishment of despotism ; and that l united we stand — 

DIVIDED WE FALL.' " 

Q. What opinion of the importance of our Federal Union has been 
expressed by Lewis Cass ? 

A. " This Confederation, and the Constitution which 
established and maintains it, are among the most glorious 
works of man, securing to us a greater measure of prosperity 
and freedom than any other people ever enjoyed, and offer- 
ing a cheering example to the oppressed nations of the earth 
struggling to regain the rights of self-government, which 
have been wrested from them. All other objects give way 
to this highest and holiest of American political duties, the 
union of men to preserve the Union of States. Whenever, 
or wherever, or however, this question of Union comes up, 
let us forget that we are party politicians, and remember 
only that we are Americans. Let us follow the noble ex- 
ample of the venerable Kentucky statesman, doing battle 
for the country toward the close of a long and illustrious 
life, with all the intellect and energy of his youth, and for- 
getting his party associations in the higher party of the 
Constitution. If we do this, all will be well. If we do not, 
we shall add another to the long list of nations unworthy of 
the blessings acquired for them by preceding generations, 
and incapable of maintaining them." 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 121 

Q. What opinion of the importance of our Federal Union has been 
expressed by Daniel Webster ? 

A. " While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, grat- 
ifying prospects spread out before us, for us and for our 
children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. 
God grant that, in my day at least, that curtain may not 
rise. God grant, that on my vision never may be opened 
what lies behind. When my eyes shall be turned to behold, 
for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him 
shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once 
glorious Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, belliger- 
ent ; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may 
be, in fraternal blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering 
glance, rather, behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, 
now known and honored throughout the earth, still full 
high advanced, its arms and its trophies streaming in their 
original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single 
star obscured — bearing for its motto no such miserable inter- 
rogatory as this — What is all this worth f ~Eov those other 
words of delusion and folly — liberty first, and union after- 
ward '; but everywhere spread all over in characters of liv- 
ing light, blazing on all its ample folds-, as they float over 
the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the 
whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true 
American heart — Liberty and union, now and forever, 

ONE AND INSEPARABLE." 



122 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

CHAPTER IY. 

SECTION I. 
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

ATTENTION. 

"All the. intellectual faculties depend on attention and memory, and these 
on the state of the organization. Our ability to compare, and therefore to 
judge concerning objects of sense, must of course be influenced by the fitness 
of the senses, and their connections, to enable the soul to attend to impres- 
sions. This fitness is not only due to the mechanism of the organs of exter- 
nal sense, but also to the condition of the blood and the nervous power. 

" The end of our argument is then simply to show that clearness and ex- 
tent of intellect depend on the power of the soul to attend to sensation, and 
to direct muscular action ; and hence that moral character will be entirely 
determined by the habit of association with other minds; for our motive for 
attending and acting is mainly derived from our love of others, and as are 
our affections, so must be our will ; therefore, it is above all tilings necessary 
that a man's true interests as a spiritual being should always be clearly pres- 
ent to his mind, since he will otherwise think and act just as his sensual na- 
ture may at the moment dictate. 

" Acuteness of faculty depends on the power of maintaining attention ; but 
this power is interfered with by any disorder of the nervous system, because 
attention itself is an act of the mind, by which the nervous system is put in 
condition to obey the soul, to receive impressions from without, or to operate 
on muscle. The purpose for which we possess a duality of organization ap- 
pears, then, to be, that we may be able to attend the longer without fatigue 
and confusion; for we rest the one side while employing the other. If, 
therefore, we are deprived of the use of an eye, for instance, we the sooner 
find the other to fail, unless it be the more sparingly engaged. This principle 
is, perhaps, the secret of sympathy between the two sides of our bodies. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 123 

Probably the duality of the brain serves a purpose similar to that of the du- 
ality of the senses. In some relations to the mind, the double arrangement 
enables us to continue thinking or acting consecutively for a longer time than 
would otherwise be possible ; the one rests while the other acts, and so on 
alternately, until both alike demand repose and refreshment, to be obtained 
only by sleep. 

"Dangers of Excessive Attention. — "We will confine our observations for a 
moment to the mechanical work of the engraver, as an example of simple 
attention. He sits with his eye and mind intent upon the fine lines of his 
copper or steel plate ; and as he looks more earnestly, he holds his breath ; 
and as his attention strengthens in its fixedness, his breathing becomes audi- 
ble and irregular. Now and then he is forced to sigh, to relieve his burdened 
and excited heart, for the blood is retarded in the lungs and brain, and if 
they be not soon relieved by some change of object or of action, he turns 
faint and dizzy. Being wrought with the same intensity day after day, he 
comes at length upon the extreme verge of danger. The right ventricle of 
the heart becomes oppressed, in consequence of imperfect action of the lungs, 
while the general circulation is quickened, and thus dilation of the heart 
soon follows, with disordered liver, and accumulation of black blood in the 
abdomen, bringing on a long train of morbid sensations, with constant dread 
of coming death. Moderate, but frequent exercise in the open air, with 
cheerful society, as it would have prevented this miserable condition, will 
also still relieve it ; but if this duty be neglected, the evil rapidly increases. 
The patient's heart palpitates excessively when either the mind or the body • 
is hurried ; he is ' tremblingly alive' in every limb, and his nervous system 
completely pains him. Pallid, weak, timid, and tremulous, he is apt to be- 
come too sensitive to endure the anxieties of domestic duty ; and, if he be 
not sustained by high religious and moral principles, he seeks a respite from 
his wretchedness in the soothing, yet aggravating narcotism of opium or to- 
bacco, or in the insidious excitement of some fermented liquor, and thus 
gradually cast out from all happy and natural associations, ends his days 
either as a hypochondriac, a madman, or a drunkard. This is not an ex- 
aggerated, but, alas ! a common picture. The evil is aggravated in these 
cases, by the state of the mind and that of the body being equally irritable ; 
they act and react on each other, and the passions of the one, as well as the 



124: EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

functions of the other, become so disordered that perfect sleep cannot be ob- 
tained, and the persistent exhaustion produces a chronic fever, for which rest, 
the only remedy, is sought in vain, except in the grave. 

" The failure of the nervous system, and the fearful recourse to narcotics 
and stimulants for its relief, are often witnessed where the tyranny of Mam- 
mon exacts too long an attention to the mechanical and anxious business of 
art. Its results are still visible in a frightful degree among the operatives of 
our great manufactories, where the eye must be quick, and the hand ever 
ready for one monotonous action, hour after hour, and day after day, with the 
mathematical precision and rapidity of machinery, even through all that period 
of life when nature most demands a cheerful diversity of object and action. 

" Attention to any part of the body is capable of exalting the sensibility 
of that part, or of causing the consciousness concerning its state to be affected 
in a new manner. Thus a man may attend to his stomach, till he feels the 
process of digestion ; to his heart, till conscious of its contractions ; to his 
brain, till he turns dizzy witli a sense of action within him ; to any of his 
limbs, till they tingle ; to himself, till tremblingly alive all over ; and to his 
ideas, till he confounds them with realities." Q. Mooue. 



Q. What is the first rule of Intellectual Education ? 
A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the 
laws which regulate and govern my relations to attention. 

. Q. What do you understand by attention? 

A. The ability to apply the human powers and faculties 
in strict obedience to the will. 

Q. Is such ability very important to persons desirous of improving 
their powers and faculties, or, in other words, of securing the benefits of 
good education ? 

A. Regular, well-directed, and undivided attention is in- 
dispensably necessary to progress in any department of 
science, to the acquisition of knowledge of any kind, and 
even to the improvement of muscular action. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 125 

Q. Is there a great difference among- persons, in their ability to fix 
the attention, and to command the thoughts ? 

A. Perhaps greater differences do not exist, than in the 
degrees in which the power of self-command is possessed. 

Q. What modern personage was very remarkable for his ability to 
command his thoughts, or to give undivided attention to any subject, at 
any time he chose to study it ? s 

A. The Emperor Napoleon. 

Q. How did he describe the action of his own mind ? 

A. He said that his mind was like a case of drawers, 
of which he could open one, get the thing he desired, close 
it, open the next, and so on ; and all his biographers con- 
cur in the statement, that he would, at will, pass, almost in- 
stantly, from a state of the highest moral and intellectual 
activity, to one of quiet and refreshing sleep. 

Q. Can such absolute self-command be acquired by most persons ? 

A. Probably it cannot ; yet some approaches toward it 
may be made by all, and the nearer any person approxi- 
mates to it, the more regular and effective will his intellect- 
ual activity become. Regular attention, therefore, must be 
assiduously cultivated and enforced by all parents and 
teachers who desire actual progress on the part of their 
children and pupils. 

Q. How long ought close and undivided attention to one subject to 
be continued at one time ? 

A. ~No precise answer, equally adapted to the capacities 
of all persons, can be given to this question : age, health, 



1<2Q EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

and degrees of education are all-important and modifying 
circumstances, which must be duly considered. Perhaps 
the beating of the pulse may give some indications not un- 
worthy of attention in such an inquiry. 

Q. In a healthy state, how often does the pulse beat? 

A. During the first year of life, 120 times in a minute; 
in the third year, 100 ; in the seventh, 90 ; in the fifteenth, 
80 ; in middle age, 70 ; and in old age, about 60. From 
five to seven years of age, perhaps from 5 to 15 minutes 
would be sufficiently long to require fixed attention at one 
time ; from seven to fifteen years of age, from 15 to 30 
minutes ; from fifteen to twenty, from 30 to 90 minutes. 
These, however, must be regarded rather as hints to excite 
inquiry, thaii as statements of facts which have been al- 
ready established. 

Q. Ought long, close, and exhausting attention to be exacted of 
children before they shall have attained the age of fourteen or fifteen 
years ? 

A. As a general rule, positively no ; there may be some 
unusually hardy specimens of young persons that may 
justly furnish exceptions to this general rule ; but in by far 
the greater majority of instances, the rule will apply. 

Q. Ought children who give decided indications of premature moral 
and intellectual development to be urged forward through the higher 
processes of education ? 

A. Quite the reverse ; it is the imperative duty, both 
of parents and teachers, to restrain rather than to urge on- 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 127 

ward such precocious children. Parents and teachers 
whose vanity prompts them to the exhibition of juvenile 
moral and intellectual prodigies, will do well to read atten- 
tively the histories of Henry Kirke White and Margaret 
Davidson, and to remember that those sad records do not 
exhibit solitary and detached instances of the fatal effects 
of excessive attention ; on the contrary, they are striking 
illustrations of a general rule, which, sooner or later, is 
always applied to all such marked violations of the laws of 
health. 

Q. What do 3^011 know of the history of Margaret Davidson % 
A. " When only in her sixth year her language was ele- 
vated, and her mind so filled with poetic imagery and reli- 
gious thought, that she read with enthusiasm and elegance 
Thomson's Seasons, the Pleasures of Hope, Cowper's Task, 
and the waitings of Milton, Byron, and Scott. The sacred 
writings were her daily study; and, notwithstanding her 
poetic temperament, she had a high relish for history, and 
read with as much interest an abstruse treatise, that called 
forth the reflective powers, as she did poetry or works of 
the imagination. Her physical frame was delicately con- 
stituted to receive impressions, and her mother was capable 
of observing and improving the opportunity afforded to 
instruct her. l\Tothing was learned by rote, and every ob- 
ject of her thought was discussed in conversation with a 
mind sympathizing with her own. Such a course, however, 
while it demonstrates the power of the mind, proves also 
that such premature employment of it is inconsistent with 



128 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

the physiology of the body ; for while the spirit reveled in 
the ecstasies of intellectual excitement, the vital functions 
of the physical frame- work were fatally disturbed. She read, 
she wrote, she danced, she sung, and was the happiest of 
the happy ; but while the soul thus triumphed, the body 
became more and more delicate, and speedily failed alto- 
gether under the successive transports." 

Q. With regard to attention, against what two evils ought the parent 
and teacher continually to guard? 

A. Deficient and excessive attention. Deficiency pre- 
cludes all possibility of progression ; excess tends directly 
to the ruin of health and the destruction of life. 

(See Abbott's Abercrombie, 81, 267; Moore's Body and Mind, 5, 134, 
208; Soul and Body, 57,69, 166 to 168, 182 to 190; Watts' 
Improvement of the Mind, 150; Spurzheim's Phrenology, 35.) 



SECTION II. 

ORDER. 



" There is an order of mind, and there is an order of matter ; so also there 
is a sense of time belonging to bodily existence, and a consciousness of du- 
ration belonging to the spirit. The former measures by the relative move- 
ment of material things ; the latter measures only by thoughts. 

" The habit of excitement is incompatible with mental and moral health; 
regularity, or an orderly succession of objects in the use of the senses, accord- 
ing to their constitution in relation to time, is not more necessary for our in- 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 129 

tellectual advancement, than for the production and preservation of our hap- 
piness ; because the laws of our physical existence and of our spiritual being 
are equally broken by undue stimulation. The movements of our minds re- 
quire to be measured by those of the universe. The ordinances of heaven 
are those of our faculties ; and therefore, if we, in ignorant willfulness or in 
perverse presumption, endeavor to excite too many chords at once, or allow 
impulses to crowd upon our nerves, discord must awaken within us both our 
faculties and our affections ; our passions and our principles become deranged, 
never again to be reduced to order, until He who spake the planets out of 
chaos shall call new harmony into existence. True obedience is never in a 
hurry ; but confusion is akin to faithlessness. The designs of God are in per- 
fect sequence, and in accordance with our moral and intellectual improve- 
ment. Let us, therefore, steadily use what we possess, and patiently wait 
for our perfection ; eternity is before us, and the Infinite our guide." 

" Our intercourse with each other is regulated by our notions of time and 
space. There could have been no order or harmony in our associations, had 
not the Creator, with his own hand, measured our movements, both of 
thought and action, on some common principle. We are all alike subject to 
the pulses of time, and one mind communicates its impressions to another by 
expressing itself, more or less, in keeping with that mind, as regards its sense 
of time ; for every feeling is as if set to appropriate music, and the manner 
of its utterance is more or less either adagio or allegro, according to its na- 
ture. Individuals do not well agree together if their nervous systems are 
very differently strung, or if the expression of their feelings and affections do 
not keep time with each other. If the mode of one is quick, and that of the 
other slow, their states of mind scarcely ever correspond ; and, if bound to 
act together, they become wonders and trials to each other, and perhaps 
perfectly intolerable ; for if they do not deem each other somewhat deranged, 
they at least think one another excessively perverse, if not wicked. 

" Time is an essential element in our knowledge. Every inquiry into sci- 
ence should be conducted with the assurance, that by observing fact after 
fact, we shall rise beyond the region of doubt, and ascend, as by steps, to the 
holy place where God reveals His glory." G-. MooaE. 

9 



130 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. What is the second rule of Intellectual Education? 
A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the laws 
which regulate and govern my relations to order. 

Q. What do you understand by Order ? 

A. " Order is Heaven's first law :" and in this sense it 
describes every existence and relation, every cause and 
effect, which the Creator has ordained and established in 
the universe. In an educational sense, order describes, 
first, the times and manner in which the human powers 
and faculties ought to be applied, and, second, the arrange- 
ment and succession of tasks upon which they are em- 
ployed. 

Q. What is the proper manner of applying the powers and faculties ? 

A. They should be so applied that the seasons of their 
greatest strength, activity, and efficiency may be devoted to 
the performance of their most difficult, severe, and exhaust- 
ing labors. 

Q. How are we to determine the seasons and hours in which the 
powers and faculties are in their greatest state of efficiency ? 

A. In a sound state of health, that perpetual monitor and 
regulator of the Solar System, the Sun, will accurately desig- 
nate the appropriate hours for all of man's appointed labors. 
Our blood quickens in its course, our feelings glow with 
ardor, and our thoughts become clear and intense, as the 
sun ascends the eastern heavens ; nor does this flow of hu- 
man energies begin to subside until the sun reaches its 
place of greatest heat, which is two full hours, at least, past 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 131 

meridian. From eight o'clock in the forenoon to two o'clock 
in the afternoon, therefore, is the natural period of the 
greatest and most efficient activity, and in this period the 
severest labors ought to be performed. 

Q. In order that the different stages of strength and activity may be 
employed upon the appropriate labors, what general observance would 
be of especial benefit to children and young persons generally ? 

A. All families, schools, and places of labor would be 
greatly benefited by the adoption of a well-digested general 
order of the clay, in which the appointed duties of each 
person should be set opposite to the hour assigned for their 
performance. Let a copy of this general order be conspic- 
uously placed in every family school, and other place of 
labor. 

Q. For the purpose of properly assigning the appropriate tasks to all 
persons, in such a manner that there shall be no misdirected, no deficient, 
and no excessive activity, what is necessary to be known ? 

A. The strength and efficiency of man in his various 
stages of life. 

Q. What is the established order of natural development ? 

A. The stages of bodily development follow in regular 
progression up to maturity. Infancy, childhood, adoles- 
cence, youth, and manhood are marked by sufficient dis- 
tinctions, and the period of one is seldom prolonged into 
that of another ; and to each of these stages, therefore, order 
assigns the appropriate duties for the appropriate hours. 

Q. Has each of these stages of development some leading and specific 
objects ? 



132 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

A. Certainly. Through the stages of infancy, childhood, 
and adolescence, the physical health, the moral temper, 
and affections are the prime objects — muscular motion, 
pleasant sights, and sweet sounds, with the addition of the 
easiest departments of knowledge, are the appropriate les- 
sons for these stages. These are continued in some degree 
through the period of youth, but superadded to them are 
the inquiries and severer labors, which have their origin in 
the Philosophical Idea. 

Q. What is the Philosophical Idea ? 

A. " It is the idea of accounting for the development 
and progress of humanity in science, art, government, and 
religion. It is the idea of accounting for every thing per- 
ceived or thought of." 

Q. For the purpose of realizing this philosophical idea, what does order 
require ? 

A. That all subjects of study, and, so far as may be done, 
all subjects of thought, shall be presented to the attention 
of learners in regular scientific classifications. 

Q. How may it be known whether classification is scientific or merely 
fanciful ? 

A. Analysis has thus far exhibited but fifty-five elements 
in all the combinations and manifestations of matter, and 
probably there are but a small number of elements in both 
the moral and intellectual constitution of man ; these ele- 
ments, whatever their number, are what Locke denominates 
as fundamental verities, and they form the basis of all ra- 
tional classification. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 133 

Q. Has a regular scientific classification of the proper subjects of 
study, physical, moral, and intellectual, yet been made ? 

A. Classification, though now in a higher and more ad- 
vanced state than it has ever before attained, is very far 
from being complete. Still, it is indispensable to any con- 
siderable progress in. science. 

(See Moore's Body and Mind, 126, 130; Man and his Motives, 136, 
137, 189; Winslow's Philosophy, 191, 203; Mansfield's Ameri- 
can Education, 96 to 101.) 



SECTION III. 

OBSERVATION. 



" It is the prerogative of the thinking soul to learn by observation ; that 
is, to employ the senses, and to judge by analogy. But this implies that a 
reasoning being is attending as soon as the senses are brought into exercise, 
and that it is prepared to work as soon as it finds materials to work with. 
Observation is the basis of our ability. 

" "When Newton was asked how he discovered the system of the universe, 
he answered, ' by thinking about it.' This thinking to an end is the glory of 
mind. The power of fixing the intellect on an object, and bringing all facts 
within our knowledge that by possibility relate to that object to elucidate it; 
and also the search after new facts, with a presentiment of their existence, 
prove that the human understanding is constituted in keeping with the Mind 
which contrived the universe. Perceiving the reason of one fact, the human 
intellect correctly infers the reason why other facts should be found. We 
find whatever we reasonably look for. We naturally expect consistency ; 
for the plan of Omnipotence agrees with reason ; it is pure reason. On this 



134 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

ground, the man of sagacity sets himself to think of a subject, with a faith in 
the powers of his mind ; a conviction that, by continuing to attend to objects 
of thought, he will see their connection and relation. Thus one thought 
awakes ten thousand ; and these all move like an army in obedience to one 
will, and to one purpose. By urging our attention with strenuous effort, 
higher and higher, we triumph over the distractions of sense ; and in the calm 
above, to which the spirit climbs through clouds and Alpine obstacles, the 
sky appears as that of another world. 

'As some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes, 
And into glory peep.' " — H. Vaughan 

G. Moore. 

" Particular matters of fact are the undoubted foundations on which our 
civil and natural knowledge is built : the benefit the understanding makes of 
them is to draw from them conclusions, which may be as standing rules of 
knowledge, and, consequently, of practice. The mind often makes not that 
benefit it should of the information it receives from the accounts of civil and 
natural historians, by being too forward or too slow in making observations 
on the particular facts recorded in them. 

" There are those who are very assiduous in reading, and yet do not much 
advance their knowledge by it. They are delighted with the stories that 
are told, and perhaps can tell them again, for they make all they read noth- 
ing but history to themselves ; but not reflecting on it, not making to them- 
selves observations from what they read, they are very little improved by 
all that crowd of particulars, that either pass through, or lodge themselves 
in their understandings. They dream on in a constant course of reading, and 
cramming themselves, but not digesting any thing, it produces nothing but a 
heap of crudities." Locke. 

"In making observations upon subjects winch are new to us, we must be 
content to use our memory, unassisted at first by our reason ; we must treas- 
ure up the ore and rubbish together, because we cannot immediately distin- 
guish them from each other. But the sooner we can separate them the 
better. In the beginning of all experimental sciences, a number of useless 
particulars are recorded, because they are not known to be useless ; when, 
by comparing these, a few general principles are discovered, the memory is 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 135 

immediately relieved, the judgment and inventive faculty have power and 
liberty to work, and then a rapid progress and great discoveries are made." 
Edgeworth's Practical Education. 



Q. What is the third rule of Intellectual Education ? 

A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the 
laws which regulate and govern my relations to observa- 
tion. 

Q. What do you understand by observation ? 

A. Such particular notice of persons and things, as may 
be necessary to ascertain their real character, properties, and 
qualities ; or, in other words, their structures, functions, 
and relations. 

Q. What are the necessary prerequisites for effective observation ? 
A. Attention and order. 

Q. Suppose you were observing a person for the purpose of ascer- 
taining the actual character and feeling, to what ought your attention to 
be particularly directed ? 

A. To the expression of the face, to the movements of 
the muscles, and to the manner of saying and doing what 
were regarded as indifferent and unimportant things. 

Q. Is the face a reliable index to both character and feeling? 
A. "The prominent state of mind becomes permanently 
written in the face, and in the very manner of the body." 

Q. Are muscular movements also indicative of character? 
A. " A man's character becomes fixed according to its 
outward realness ; his principles are truly embodied in his 



236 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

practice ; and in proportion as a man carries out in his ac- 
tions what he admits into his creed, will this bodily habit 
and constitution assume a corresponding consistency and 
constancy. Our waking life is that of our passions, and our 
limbs and features are always expressing them. Thus the 
notion which unbiased 'and intelligent persons form of a 
man's habitual state of mind from his features and his man- 
ners, supposing him free from disease, is seldom very 
wrong, for clothing cannot hide a man's soul, as long as he 
is able to move." 

Q. What directions did Lord Chesterfield give to persons who were 
desirous of knowing the actual characters of others ? 

A. He directed them to observe critically the manner of 
saying and doing such things as were regarded as unim- 
portant and indifferent, as these would most likely show 
the true state of the temper and feeling. . 

Q. In order that one may be truly profited by observation, what must 
be carefully guarded against? 

A. Bias, partiality, and trifling. 

Q. Are persons liable to be influenced in their observations by their 
pre-existing states of feeling ? 

A. Nothing is more common. An amusing instance of 
this liability to error is cited by Lord Kaimes, in his Ele- 
ments of Criticism. A clergyman and a lady were once 
looking at the appearances on the face of the moon ; the 
clergyman beheld in them a picture of a most magnificent 
cathedral ; the lady was struck with amazement at the ob- 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 137 

tuseness of his vision, for certainly it must be plain to every- 
body that they were the very images of two happy lovers. 

Q. Are the bases on which profitable observations may be founded 
numerous 1 

A. Exceedingly so. Every subject of study is a basis for 
observation ; so is every department of human action and 
labor. All persons, therefore, who desire wisdom, must be 
constant, critical, and careful observers. Parents and teach- 
ers, above all other persons, must be good observers. 
Q. Ought observations to be briefly, yet accurately recorded? 
A. A brief, accurate, and expeditious mode of recording 
observations must be adopted by all persons who mean to 
derive lasting benefit from what they observe. There are 
general and special bases for observation. Truth is one of 
the most important general bases, and all persons might 
classify their observations on this basis under three general 
heads, namely, Certainties, Probabilities, and Possibili- 
ties. 

Q. What would constitute the column of certainties 7 
A. Things self-evident, and things of which the evi- 
dence is demonstrative. 

Q. What would constitute the column of probabilities ?' 
A. All those things of which the evidence, though not 
demonstrative, still produces conviction and actual belief. 
Q. What would constitute the column of possibilities ? 
A. All those things of which the evidence is so shadowy 



138 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

and unsubstantial as to produce neither conviction nor be- 
lief, but just the bare mental assent that such things may 
exist. 

Q. How will a person of sound judgment be governed in relation to 
such a classification ? 

A. Such a person will critically and accurately study the 
column of certainties, and, to the utmost limit of ability, 
conform the actions of the life to its requirements. The 
column of probabilities is the great sphere of human ac- 
tions, expectations, and hopes, and of all these, the wise 
man will ever be a close and attentive observer. The col- 
umn of possibilities is generally so remote from the sphere 
of human duty and action, that a wise man will bestow but 
little time or thought upon it. 

Q. In reading History, what are two necessary bases of observation ? 
A. Geography and Chronology. 

Q. What bases of observation are necessary, in order to obtain a true 
and accurate perception of the state of well-being of any individual or 
people? 

A. Such as would describe truly their actual condition, 
physical, moral, and intellectual. Tables might be con- 
structed on the bases of this Monitor and Catechism, that 
would be sufficiently definite for general purposes. 

Q. What illustrious American was so remarkable for the extent and 
accuracy of his observations that he is justly entitled to the veneration 
and imitation of his countrymen to the end of time, as a Model Observer? 

A. Benjamin Fkanklin. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 139 

Q. What is said of him in Edgeworth's Practical Education ? 

A. " The first thing that strikes us, in looking over Dr. 
Franklin's works, is the variety of his observations upon 
different subjects. We might imagine that a very tena- 
cious and powerful memory was necessary to register all 
these ; but Dr. Franklin informs us that it was his constant 
practice to note down every hint as it occurred to him. He 
urges his friends to do the same. He observes that there 
is scarcely a day passes without our seeing or hearing some- 
thing which, if properly attended to, might lead to useful 
discoveries. By thus committing his ideas to writing, his 
mind was left at liberty to think. ISTo extraordinary effort 
of memory was, even upon the greatest occasions, requisite. 
A friend wrote to him to inquire how he was led to his 
great discovery of the identity of lightning and electricity, 
and how he first came to think of drawing down the light- 
ning from the clouds ; Dr. Franklin replies that he could 
not answer better than by giving an extract from the min- 
utes he used to keep of the experiments he made, with 
memoranda of such as he purposed to make, the reasons 
for making them, and the observations that rose upon them. 
By this extract, says Dr. Franklin, you will see that the 
thought was not so much an out of the way one, but that it 
might have occurred to any electrician." 

Q. What was the extract from his Notes of Observations which Dr. 
Franklin sent to his friend ? 

A. " Soy. 7, 1749. Electrical fluid agrees with lightning 
in these particulars : 1. Giving light. 2. Color of the light. 



140 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

3. Crooked direction. 4. Swift motion. 5. Being con 
ducted by metals. 6. Crack or noise in exploding. 7. Sub- 
sisting in water or ice. 8. Rending bodies it passes through. 
9. Destroying animals. 10. Melting metals. 11. Firing 
inflammable substances. 12. Sulphureous smell ; the elec- 
tric fluid is attracted by points. We do not know whether 
this property is in lightning. But, since they agree in all 
the particulars wmerein we can already compare them, is it 
not probable they agree likewise in this ? Let the experiment 
be made." — Dr. Franklin's Letters, p. 322. 

(Moore's Soul and Body, 32, 113, 114, 194 ; Moore's Body and Mind, 
208; Winslow's Philosophy, 251 to 260; Watts on the Mind, 
34, 42 ; Edge worth's Practical Education, 401 to 435. 



SECTION IV. 

REFLECTION. 



■ We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with 
a great load of collections ; unless we chew them over again, they will not 
give us strength and nourishment. There are, indeed, in some writers visible 
instances of deep thoughts, close and acute reasoning, and ideas well pursued. 
The light they would give would be of great use, if their reader would ob- 
serve and imitate them ; all the rest, at best, are but particulars fit to be 
turned into knowledge ; but that can be done only by our own meditation, 
and examining the reach, force, and coherence of what is said ; and then, as 
far as we apprehend and see the connection of ideas, so far it is ours ; with- 
out that, it is but so much loose matter floating in our brain. The memory 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 141 

may be stored, but the judgment is little better, and the stock of knowledge 
not increased, by being able to repeat what others have said, or produce the 
arguments we have found in them. Such a knowledge as this is but knowl- 
edge by hearsay, and the ostentation of it is at best but talking by rote, and 
rery often upon weak and wrong principles. 

" This way of thinking on, and. profiting by, what we read and observe will 
be a clog to any one only in the beginning : when custom and. exercise have 
made it familiar, it will be dispatched, on most occasions, without resting or 
interruption in the course of our reading. The motions and views of a mind 
exercised, that way are wonderfully quick ; and a man used to such sort of 
reflections sees as much at one glimpse as would require a long discourse to 
lay before another, and make out by entire and gradual deduction. Besides 
that, when the first difficulties are over, the delight and sensible advantage 
it brings, mightily encourages and enlivens the mind in reading, which with- 
out this is very improperly called study." Locke. 

" Sound reflection is to the intellect what good digestion is to the body. 
Observation collects facts ; reflection develops principles. Facts are the ali- 
ment of intellect ; reflection digests them, and carries their nutritive particles 
into the circulation. ' Reflect on your own thoughts, actions, circumstances, 
and — what will be of especial aid to you in forming a habit of reflection — 
accustom yourself to reflect on the words you use, hear, or read ; then birth, 
derivation, and history. For if words are not things, they are living powers, 
by which the things of most importance to mankind are actuated, combined, 
and humanized.' " Coleridge. 



Q. What is the fourth rule of Intellectual Education 1 

A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the laws 
which regulate and govern my relations to reflection. 

Q. What do you understand by reflection 1 

A. A patient, systematic, and critical review of all the 



142 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

sensations, feelings, and thoughts which observation has 
excited within me, the causes which produced them, the 
manner in which they were produced, and, particularly, the 
effects which they have produced upon myself. 

Q. Is systematic and constant reflection necessary to progress in sci- 
ence and wisdom ? 

A. It is indispensably necessary to such progress. 
Knowledge, that is, the bare cognition of existences, may 
be acquired without reflection ; but such knowledge, far 
from being useful, is often highly injurious. 

Q. Is there, then, a difference between knowledge and wisdom ; and 
if so, in what does that difference consist ? 

A. We will let Cowper give the answer to this question: 

" Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, 
Have oft-times no connection. Knowledge dwells 
In heads replete with thoughts of other men ; 
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. 
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, 
The mere materials with which wisdom builds, 
Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place, 
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich. 
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much ; 
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. 
Books are not seldom talismans and spells, 
By which the magic art of shrewder wits 
Holds an unthinking multitude enthralled. 
Some to the fascination of a name 
Surrender judgment, hood- winked. Some the style 
Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds 
Of error leads them by a tune entranced. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 143 

While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear 

The insupportable fatigue of thought, 

And swallowing, therefore, without pause or choice, 

The total grist unsifted, husks and all." 

Q. Is the scope of reflection very wide ? 

A. It covers the whole field of observation, for whatever 
is worthy of careful notice at first, is certainly deserving of 
after consideration. 

Q. With regard to the formation of the habit of regular and constant 
reflection, what directions are given by Dr. Watts in his most excellent 
book on the " Improvement of the Mind ?" 

A. " Once a day, especially in the early years of life and 
study, call yourselves to an account, what new ideas, what 
new propositions and truths you have gained, what further 
confirmation of known truths, and what advances you have 
made in any part of knowledge ; and let no day, if possi- 
ble, pass away without some intellectual gain. Such a 
course, well pursued, must certainly advance us in useful 
knowledge. It is a wise proverb among the learned, bor- 
rowed from the lips and practice of a celebrated painter, 
' nulla dies sine HnedJ let no clay pass without one line at 
least ; and it was a sacred rule among the Pythagoreans, 
that they should every evening thrice run over the actions 
and affairs of the day, and examine what their conduct had 
been, what they had done, or what they had neglected ; 
and they assured their pupils, that by this method they 
made a noble progress in the path of virtue. 

' Nor let soft slumber close your eyes, 
Before you've recollected thrice 



144 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

The train of action through the day : 
Where have my feet chose out their way ? 
What have I learnt where'er I've been, 
From all I've heard, from all I've seen I 
What know I more that's worth the knowing ? 
What have I done that's worth the doing ? 
What have I sought that I should shun ? 
What duty have I left undone ? 
Or into what new follies run ? 
These self-inquiries are the road 
That leads to virtue and to God.' 

" I would be glad, among a nation of Christians, to find 
young persons heartily engaged in the practice of what this 
heathen writer teaches." 

Q. What was Doctor Johnson's opinion of the merit of the book from 
which the above extract has been taken 1 

A. "Few books have been perused by me with greater 
pleasure than Dr. "Watts' Improvement of the Mind ; of 
which the radical principles may indeed be found in Locke's 
Conduct of the Understanding, but they are so expanded 
and ramified by Watts, as to confer on him the merit of a 
work in the highest degree useful and pleasing. Whoever 
has the care of instructing others, may be charged with de- 
ficiency in his duty if this book is not recommended." 

(See Watts on the Mind, 11, 12, 31, 33; Locke's and Bacon's Essays; 
Coleridge's Aids to Reflection ; Moore's Soul and Body, 113, 1 14.) 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 145 

SECTION V. 

LANGUAGE. 

""Whatever suggests the appearance of living action is most agreeable 
and enduring in the mind. Our knowledge is intended to be associated with 
our feelings. Hence it is difficult to teach children the rudiments of lan- 
guage without associating even the forms of letters with their ideas of actual 
life and motion. Every lesson should be on objects. God's works and man's 
are what we have to learn, and he whose mind dwells in books, without 
familiarity with things, lives in a dream ; his reason is unsettled, he has no 
true faith, for the world of true faith is a true world, full of great facts of a 
palpable kind, which none but madmen would dispute about. Hence the im- 
portance of familiarity with physical science, and the positive operations of 
mind on mind, and the grand events of providence and history, to the forma- 
tion of a true philosopher. 

" Natural objects, seen in natural order, are far better remembered than 
what is merely heard ; and yet if we properly attend, we generally retain 
the fact stated in a lecture much more distinctly than those related in a 
book, which we only cursorily read, and this seems to arise from our imagina- 
tions being more called into action to realize what we hear, than what is 
merely presented to us in printed words ; for spoken language is natural, and 
excites our nerves sympathetically, according to intonation of voice, but let- 
ters are altogether artificial and conventional, requiring an effort to interpret 
them ; so that to enjoy books thoroughly, it is necessary that the reader 
should be quite habituated to reading, and accustomed to constrain his mind 
to idealize. 

"Every living creature is governed by language, either in visible or audi- 
ble signs ; for language is meaning, feeling, thought, intelligence, actively sig- 
nified. Animals have a language of emotion, but not of thought ; man's lan- 
guage expresses both. Hence there are so many voices in the world, and 
none without significance ; and an uncertain sound is tho utterance and occa- 
sion of doubt." G. Moore. 
10 



146 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. What is the fifth rule of Intellectual Education? 
A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the 
laws which regulate and govern my relations to language. 

Q. What do you understand by language? 

A. Language is the medium through which knowledge 
is communicated from one person to another. 

Q. What are the two general forms of language ? 

A. Spoken and written. To persons near enough to hear 
the. voice, communications are made by speaking; to per- 
sons who are beyond the reach of the voice, communica- 
tions are made by writing. Language, therefore, whether 
spoken or written, is composed of words. 

Q. What are words ? 

A. Words, when spoken, are audible, and when written, 
visible signs or representatives of things ; . and, unless the 
identical things represented by the words are distinctly ap- 
prehended by the mind, whenever the sounds of words are 
heard, or their written and printed forms seen, no real in- 
formation is communicated by them ; they are then insig- 
nificant sounds, and visible signs of nothing. 

Q. Is language an important department of study ? 

A. When properly pursued, none can be more so. It is 
language which opens to us the treasures of the past — it is 
language which makes known to us the progress of the 
present, and by language alone can we address the future. 
It is language which places man at the head of all earthly 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 14? 

intelligences, and without it he would soon sink to the level 
of the brutal herd. 

Q. What are the two principal things to which attention must be 
given while acquiring a practical knowledge of language 1 

A. First, the spoken sounds, and written and printed 
forms of words ; and second, its grammatical, logical, and 
rhetorical import. 

Q. When do the appropriate exercises in these two departments prop- 
erly commence ? 

A . In the former, with the first word spoken by the child ; 
and too much care cannot be exercised by parents to see 
that the earliest articulation shall be clear and distinct, and 
the first pronunciation full and correct. The speech of 
many persons is ungainly and boorish through life in conse- 
quence of the barbarism and nonsense of the nursery. 
Children may be early taught to make first with a pencil, 
and afterward with a pen, the written forms of words. 
Would parents, even while their children are learning the 
letters, teach them to write as well as utter sounds, probably 
many children, like John Wesley, would master the whole 
alphabet in one clay. Articulation, spelling, and the writ- 
ten forms of words will be sufficient exercises of their kind 
until children reach the age of seven years, which, as a 
general rule, is quite as early as children ought to be placed 
at school. Add to these exercises definition, and they, with 
the elements of geography and arithmetic, would be suffi- 
ciently extensive for primary schools. 



148 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. At what age ought the second department of language to be com- 
menced, and what ought it to include? 

A. It ought to commence not earlier than twelve or four- 
teen years of age ; and it ought to include a thorough gram- 
matical, logical, and rhetorical analysis of the language. In 
this department a full course of standard authors ought to 
be carefully and critically read, so that on its completion, 
all the pupils shall have some just and adequate percep- 
tions of the philosophy of language and the philosophy of 
mind. 

Q. What has Mansfield, in his admirable work on American Educa- 
tion, which every parent and every teacher in the United States ought to 
read, said of the importance of clear thoughts and clear language to the 
teacher ? 

A. "Next to personal character, the facility of commu- 
nicating clear thoughts in clear language, is the grand sine 
qua non of a good teacher. I cannot think any one ever 
made a good instructor without it ; and no one who has it 
not, at least in a tolerable degree, need expect to be any 
thing more than a plowboy in breaking up the fallow 
ground of human ignorance. I do not mean fluency or ele- 
gance of language, for I have heard gentlemen discourse 
most rapidly and elegantly, for hours together, when it 
would have defied the wisdom of Solomon to have told 
what they said ; and I know a distinguished clergyman of 
whom it was said in college, that he could not state a prop- 
osition in distinct terms. And yet this capacity to state 
clear thoughts in clear language, without one word more or 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 149 

less than is necessary, is an element of the highest elo- 
quence, and the greatest power in the range ot numan acqui- 
sition. It has distinguished some of the most remarkable 
men of modern times ; it was the peculiar talent of Swift 
and Cobbett, and marked the genius of Chatham and of 
Webster ; and this power should always be, in some degree, 
the attribute of a teacher." 

Q. What has the author of Laeon said of dullness and prosing in au- 
thorship ? 

A. " For the last thirty years, the public mind has had 
such interesting and rapid incidents to witness and to reflect 
upon, and must now anticipate some that will be still more 
momentous, that any thing like dullness or prosing in au- 
thorship will either nauseate or be refused ; the realities 
of life have pampered the public palate with a diet so stim- 
ulating, that vapidity has now become as insipid as water 
to a dram-drinker, or sober sense to a fanatic." 

Q. What wonderful and recent invention or discovery, in connection 
with the rapid multiplication of ideas, is destined to work momentous 
changes in language? 

A. The Electric Telegraph. All that is really important 
in any speech, message, and report, will be speedily com- 
municated to the public in the condensed style of the light- 
ning press ; and after any composition has been thus evis- 
cerated, all the husks and scum of verbiage will be at 
once given to the winds. Orators, hereafter, who desire 
the audience of the people of the United States, must cease 
to study the endless though splendid prosings of Burke, and, 



250 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

to their utmost ability, imitate the clear and condensed 
energy of Webster and Calhoun. 

Q. What considerations urge the children and youth of the United 
States to a critical and persevering study of their native language ? 

A. Let the individual who aspires to literary or scientific 
fame study deeply the Anglo-American tongue, for in that, 
more than in any other, will the history of men and nations 
be hereafter written. Through it will the deathless verse 
of Shakspeare and Milton speak to unborn millions. 
Through it the patriot in all future time will proclaim the 
electric and vivifying truths of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. Perhaps it is not too much to assume that this 
language is to be the medium through which all the inhab- 
itants of earth are to be summoned to political freedom and 
national independence ; and, further, higher and holier, 
our language is, probably, the appointed means through 
which the Gospel is to be preached to every creature. Who 
tharthas carefully noted the rapid extension of this language 
within the last five centuries — who that has any just con- 
ception of its vast compass and exhaustless capabilities of 
adaptation — who that perceives that as the ocean drinks up 
all the rivers of the earth, so this language, having been fed 
and nourished by all the former leading languages of man, 
is now abundantly capable of absorbing them all — will pro- 
nounce this supposition fanciful? Let, then, a language 
fraught with such promises become a subject of unceasing 
cultivation and study. Let it be purified, enriched, and 
adorned, until it shall be more symmetrical and beautiful, 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 151 

as it is already more copious and energetic, than the classic 
tongues of Greece and Rome. 

(Watts on the Improvement of the Mind, 73 to 88 ; Dymond's Es- 
says, 239 to 246; Moore's Man and his Motives, 145; Moore's 
Body and Mind, 144, 145 ; Mansfield's American Education, 89 
to 91.) 



SECTION VI. 

READING. 



" Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, 
nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books arc 
to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digest- 
ed ; that is, some books are to be read only in parts ; others to be read, but 
not curiously ; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and at- 
tention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of 
them by others ; but that would be only the less important arguments, and 
the meaner sort of books ; else distilled books are, like common distilled 
waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man ; conference, a ready man ; 
and writing, an exact man ; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need 
have a great memory ; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit ; 
and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that 
he doth not. Histories make men wise ; poets, witty ; the mathematics, sub- 
tile ; natural philosophy, deep ; moral, grave ; logic, rhetoric, able to con- 
tend : there is no stand or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out 
by fit studies, like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercise ; 
bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting, for the lungs and breast; 
gentle walking, for the stomach ; riding, for the head, and the like ; so, if a 
man's wits be wandering, let him study the mathematics, for in demonstra- 
tions, if his wit be called away never so little he must begin again ; if his wit 



152 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let bim study the schoolmen ; if 
he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call upon one thing to prove an- 
other, let him study the lawyers' cases ; so every defect of the mind may 
have a special receipt:' Bacon. 

" The custom of reading aloud for a great while together is extremely 
fatiguing to children, and hurtful to their understandings ; they learn to read 
on without the slightest attention or thought ; the more fluently they read, 
the worse it is for them; for their preceptors, while words and sentences are 
pronounced with tolerable emphasis, never seem to suspect that the reader 
can be tired, or that his mind may be absent from his book. The monotonous 
tones which are acquired by children who read a great deal aloud, are ex- 
tremely disagreeable, and the habit cannot easily be broken : we may observe, 
that children who have not acquired bad customs, always read as they speak, 
when they understand what they read ; but the moment when they come to 
any sentence which they do not comprehend, their voice alters, and they 
read with hesitation, or false emphasis : to these signals a preceptor should 
always attend, and the passage should be explained before the pupil is taught 
to read it in a musical tone, or with the proper emphasis : thus children 
should be taught to read by the understanding, and not merely by the ear. 
Dialogues, dramas, and well-written narratives, they always read well, and 
these should be their exercises in the art of reading : they should be allowed 
to put down the book as soon as they are tired ; but an attentive tutor will 
perceive when they ought to be stopped, before the utmost period of fatigue. 
We have heard a boy of nine years old, who had never been taught elocu- 
tion by any reading-master, read simple pathetic passages, and natural dia- 
logues, in ' Evenings at Home,' in a manner which would have made Sterne's 
critic forget his stop-watch. 

"The history of realities, written in an entertaining manner, appears not 
only better suited for the purposes of education, but also more agreeable to 
young people than improbable fictions. We have seen the reasons why it is 
dangerous to pamper the taste early with mere books of entertainment ; to 
voyages and travels we have made some objections. Natural history is a 
study particularly suited to children ; it cultivates their talents for observa- 
tion, applies to objects within their reach, and to objects which are every 
day interesting to them. The histories of the bee, the ant, the caterpillar, 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 153 

the butterfly", the silkworm, are the first things that please the taste of chil- 
dren, and these are histories of realities." 

Edgjeworth's Practical Education. 



Q. What is the sixth rule of Intellectual Education ? 
A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the 
laws which regulate and govern my relations to reading. 

Q. What do you understand by reading ? 

A. Reading is either the audible pronunciation of the 
words of a written or printed composition, for the purpose 
of developing and disciplining the organs of speech, or for 
conveying the sense of the composition to others ; or it is 
the silent and careful perusal of a composition for the pur- 
pose of obtaining whatever of science, knowledge, or infor- 
mation it may contain. 

Q. Where are these several modes of reading properly practiced? 

A. The first is among the most common and important of 
school exercises ; the second is used in the family and social 
circle for both instruction and amusement, and in the lec- 
ture-room and all other places in which reading is practiced 
for public instruction ; the third is the mode of reading 
practiced by students, and is frequently called study. 

Q. What are the principal objects of reading in the schools ? 

A. The first object is to develop and discipline the or- 
gans of speech ; the second is to acquire the ability to read, 
with quick and accurate perception of the author's meaning, 
the various styles of composition. 



154 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. What is reading in the former manner sometimes called ] 
A. Phonology, and vocal gymnastics; it is the appro- 
priate exercise of the earliest years of the school-age, and 
should be continued and repeated until all the elementary 
sounds are completely mastered, and a full and distinct ar- 
ticulation thoroughly acquired. Appropriate lessons for 
this exercise may be found in most of the school-books now 
in common use, but many books, and some of them works 
of decided merit, have been prepared within the last ten 
years expressly for these exercises. 

Q. What studies are necessary to enable the student* to perceive 
quickly, and utter properly, the true meaning of authors in the various 
styles of composition ? 

A. Grammar, logic, and rhetoric ; they are studies of 
the highest importance, and have been briefly described in 
the article on language. 

Q. On what bases does good reading essentially depend? 

A. On a perfect articulation, and on a quick and accu- 
rate perception of the true sense of the authors whose com- 
positions are read. Any person possessing these prime re- 
quisites is a good reader, but all the rules of all the elocu- 
tionists will be insufficient to make even tolerable readers 
where these are wanting. 

Q. How may all books be classed ? 

A. Under three general heads, namely, Popular, Scien- 
tific, and Professional. Popular books are written in the 
common language of the people, without technical terms 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 155 

and terms of art, and are read for instruction and amuse- 
ment. 

Scientific books contain demonstrated and classified 
truths, or verities, and are the appropriate books for the 
study of all persons who wish to acquire exact knowledge. 
Professional books contain the science, art, and literature 
which belong to the various professions ; these books are 
peculiarly adajDted to the wants of students and members 
of the professions. 

Q. What one book is of more importance than all others, and worthy 
of being read and studied by all persons, and at all times ? 

A. The Bible. Regarded simply as a literary composi- 
tion, it is the most remarkable book in the world. " The 
history of more than two thousand years of the most won- 
derful period of the human race, belongs to the Bible. 
Strike the book of Genesis out, and you can find it nowhere 
else. In vain you search the ruins of Egypt ; in vain you 
dig up the foundations of Nineveh ; in vain you search the 
boasted antiquities of Hindostan ; in vain you read the 
pretended legends of China — all is darkness, or all is fable. 
Every history, every tradition, every philosophy, every 
book, however assuming authority, every science, and every 
art, fails to discover the early history of man. Here only 
we have it. Brief, sententious, rapid in its survey, and yet 
picturesque, it is the history of man in his creation, his 
progress, his separation, his wanderings, and his civiliza- 
tion, during one-third of his recorded life on earth ! 

"If this history were lost, the entire foundation of hu- 



156 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

man knowledge would be lost ; for all that we know of the 
history and progress of the human race is connected with, 
bound to, and derived from, this short record of its primi- 
tive age. Nothing can be gathered from ruins, from tra- 
dition, from conjecture, fancy, or philosophy. Here is all ; 
and this history contains the axioms, definitions, and ele- 
ments of all historical science. It is a solid foundation, 
around which the storms of time have beaten in vain." 

Q. How does Mansfield, from whose American Education the two 
preceding paragraphs have been taken, describe the Bible as a delineator 
of human character ? 

A. " The portrait of man, in his generic character, as 
given in the Scriptures, is a daguerreotype of his moral 
nature, drawn by the pencil of divine light. It is accurate 
in all respects. No human being has been able to read 
that description of man, and say — This is not my nature. 
No one has been so great, and none so low, that their like- 
ness was not inscribed on the pages of Holy Writ ; none 
have been so base, and none so noble, none so deformed, 
and none so perfect, that all his features, his peculiarities, 
his baseness, or his glory, have not been drawn so clearly, 
so strikingly, that through all the ages of time that charac- 
ter will stand forth, and those features be recognized ! 

"The Bible is the only book which contains this portrait 
of human nature. It is the only one in which this branch 
of knowledge can be learned. If it be useful, then, for 
man to know himself (and ancient philosophers have said 
this was the most valuable of knowledge), certainly it is 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 157 

useful to study the Bible, which alone contains an accurate 
account of human nature." 

Q. After the Bible, what other books ought to be read and studied in 
all families, and by all young persons ? 

A. Well-written and accurate works upon General Edu- 
cation. Eo young person can safely, or even innocently, 
be ignorant of the fundamental principles of Health, Mo- 
rality, and Intellect. Without a thorough knowledge and 
observance of these, no person can be a good citizen, and 
wherever competent and free schools have been established, 
voluntary ignorance and neglect of them become nearly, or 
quite criminal. Watts' Improvement of the Mind, and 
Mansfield's American Education, are specimens of the 
kind of books alluded to in this paragraph, and their supe- 
rior merits justly entitle them to a place in every family 
and every school in the United States. 

Q. Except those persons whose business or vocation is scientific, liter- 
ary, and professional, is great reading profitable, or even desirable ? 

A. " The prolonged attention to minute objects, as in 
print, is itself disturbing to the faculties, and requires a long 
labor to overcome its evil effects. Indeed, it is not improb- 
able that great readers are awkward and untoward men, 
because the habits of their minds are unnatural, that is, 
without proper sympathies, and some of their faculties be- 
numbed by too constant a use of their eyes on print, in- 
stead of human faces, and the many eloquent objects of 
nature. The unnaturalness of reading is seen in the vast 
difficulty experienced in educating by this means, through 



158 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

the medium of books, those persons who have not been ac- 
customed to apply the eye to the discrimination of minute 
objects. Even the children of such persons, from hereditary 
formation, are scarcely able, under the strongest motive, 
sufficiently to fix the attention on letters to learn them. 
This difficulty is especially observed among wandering 
tribes." 

Q. What ought to form a great portion of the reading of the people 
of our country ? 

A. The history of the United States. 

Q. How ought this history to be written, in order to be well adapted 
to the wants of all persons ? 

A. It should be arranged under three general heads, 
namely, Juvenil^ Popular, and Scientific. The Juvenile 
department would embrace the geography and chronology 
of the country, in connection with the leading topics, im- 
portant actions, and striking incidents of the various epochs 
described. Accurate maps, chronological charts, and proper 
pictorial embellishments, in this department are indispensa- 
ble, as they serve the double purpose of arresting the atten- 
tion, and essentially aiding in impressing the facts on the 
memory. No better way of teaching this department can 
be devised, than to furnish each pupil with outline maps, 
charts, and drawings, and require them to fill them out with 
neatness and accuracy ; these, together with a proper de- 
velopment of moral feeling, would complete this depart- 
ment. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 159 

Q. What would constitute the Popular Department ? 

A. The Popular department would embrace the Juve- 
nile, with more ample extent and illustration ; the motives 
which inspired the actions, and the consequences following 
their performance, would be fully and accurately exhibited. 
The great object of this department is to purify and elevate 
the moral feeling, and to give such general and reliable in- 
formation as may be necessary to guide the citizen in the 
ordinary performance of his duties. 

Q What would constitute the Scientific Department 2 
A. All the data of history accurately arranged in strict 
scientific forms, and expressed in brief and precise lan- 
guage. This department would be for the especial use of' 
statesmen, legislators, philosophers, historians, and pro- 
fessed students of history. 

Q. Is the history of the United States peculiarly rich and instructive ? 

A. To the American and Eepublican it is, by far, the 
most significant and important epoch in the world's civil 
history. 

Q. How did Lord Chatham describe the characters of the men who 
composed the first Continental Congress that met in Philadelphia % 

A. u History, my lords, has been my favorite study ; and 
in the celebrated writings of antiquity, I have often admired 
the patriotism of Greece and Home ; but, my lords, I must 
declare and avow, that in the master States of antiquity, I 
know not the people nor the senate who, in such a compli- 
cation of difficult circumstances, can stand in preference to 



IQQ EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

the delegates of America, assembled in general Congress at 
Philadelphia." 

Q. How does Alison, the British historian, describe the character and 
progress of the people of the United States ? 

A. Substantially as follows : " There is something almost 
awful in the incessant advance of the great stream of civil- 
ization, which in America is continually rolling down from 
the summits of the Alleghany Mountains, and overspread- 
ing the boundless forests of the Far West, lS~o less than three 
hundred thousand persons, almost all in the prime of life, 
now yearly pass the Alleghany Mountains, and settle on 
the banks of the Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, and 
their tributary streams. Along a frontier tract above 
twelve hundred miles in length, the average advance of cul- 
tivation is about seventeen miles a year ; thus reclaiming 
from the wilderness, annually, twenty thousand four hun- 
dred square miles. These hardy pioneers of American 
progress go forth to war upon the forest with the powers of 
art, and the industry of civilization ; with perseverance in 
their character, order in their habits, and fearlessness in their 
hearts ; with the axe in their hands, the Bible in their 
pockets, and the encyclopaedia by their sides." 

Such is but a faint outline of our country's greatness ; and 
it may with truth be said, that its physical grandeur is sur- 
passed only by its moral sublimity. Its whole history is 
replete with noble deeds, with incidents and legends which 
ought to glow upon the canvas of the painter, and to live 
in the undying song of bards. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. l(ft 

Q. What physical effect is produced by extensive and accurate knowl- 
edge of the history of one's race and country? 

A. " Those nations have the best-formed heads who have 
been possessed of the best histories or traditions, and who 
have been called to the highest exercise of memory ; for in 
this consists the principal means of advancing the arts of 
civilization, and of maintaining the dominion of truth and 
religion both over mind and body. The very act of acquir- 
ing, recording, or recollecting true knowledge is attended 
by a state of brain and a sobriety of manner which tend, at 
once, to imbody, impersonate, and fix its advantages in the 
individual so employed, and to perpetuate the benefit in his 
offspring. If, therefore, the increase of schools did nothing 
more than demand the general employment of youthful 
memory in acquiring truth, it would accomplish immense 
good, for this is always associated more or less with control 
of the body, and it will, moreover, be the groundwork of 
right reason when coming circumstances shall require se- 
verer exercise of intellect." 

(Watts' Improvement of the Mind, 42 to 68; Edge worth's Practical 
Education, 238 to 287 ; Mansfield's American Education, 220 to 
246 ; Dymond's Essays, 239 to 253 ; Humphrey's Domestic Edu- 
cation, 88 to 103.) 

u 



162 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

SECTION VII. 

PERSEVERANCE. 

" What exercise is to the body, thought is to the intellect. Untiring indus- 
try and perseverance are the most certain means of success in every depart- 
ment of life. Where genius alone has succeeded once, industry and perse- 
verance have succeeded a thousand times. Ordinary endowments, with well- 
directed and constant application, win the great prizes of life. The ability to 
labor is given to all ; genius is granted to but few. It was not genius but in- 
dustry and perseverance which made Franklin and Washington the pride 
and glory of our race, and fit models for imitation to all generations." 



Q. What is the seventh rule of Intellectual Education? 

A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the 
laws which regulate and govern my relations to persever- 
ance. 

Q. What do you understand by perseverance ? 

A. The well-directed and long-continued application of 
the human powers and faculties for the accomplishment of 
any specific purpose. Few rules are more important than 
this. When sound judgment has first given the direction, 
perseverance is almost certain to reward all efforts with 
success ; but, without strict adherence to this rule, no talents, 
no fortune will be sufficient for the attainment of any great 
and worthy object. There are no persons to whom perse- 
verance is more necessary than parents and teachers. Again 
and again must they faithfully repeat their laborious pro- 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 163 

cesses, and often without any perceptible and desirable 
effect, still they are lost and their labors are lost the mo- 
ment they cease to persevere. Children and pupils too 
must adopt this rule as one of the great canons of their 
lives ; and one of the standing mottoes of all persons who 
desire to avoid the mortifications of failure, must be Per- 
severance. 



SECTION VIII. 

DISPATCH. 



" Affected dispatch is one of the most dangerous things to business that 
can be ; it is like that which the physicians call pre-digestion, or hasty diges- 
tion ; which is sure to fill the body full of crudities and secret seeds of dis- 
ease : therefore measure not dispatch by the time of sitting, but by the ad- 
vancement of business ; and, as in races, it is not the large stride or high lift 
that makes the speed, so, in business, the keeping close to the matter, and 
not taking of it too much at once, procureth dispatch." Bacon. 



Q. What is the eighth rule of Intellectual Education ? 
A. I must know accurately, and observe strictly, the 
laws which regulate and govern my relations to dispatch. 

Q. What do you understand by dispatch ? 

A. The regular and orderly completion of study and 
business in the shortest time compatible with its perfect 



164 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

performance. Dispatch can result only from sound judg- 
ment, strict order, and prompt application. That there 
may be dispatch, it is necessary that all appropriate duties 
shall be prearranged in such a way that there shall ever 
be " a time for every thing, and every thing at its time" " a 
place for every thing, and every thing in its place" Delays 
and postponements are antagonistic to dispatch, and must 
ever be carefully avoided. " Never put off until to-morrow 
what ought to be done to-day." " Procrastination is the 
thief of time." Of all species of theft, this is the most 
common and destructive ; ought it not, therefore, to be the 
most odious and disreputable ? Yain hopes of to-morrow, 
have ruined thousands. Eight uses of to-day, will make 
millions happy. 



CHAPTEE Y. 

SECTION I. 

GENERAL REVIEW. 

Q. What is the groundwork of the Frontispiece ? 
A. The front of a Tuscan edifice, drawn in conformity to 
the rules of art. 

Q. What are the names of the five principal orders of Architecture ? 
A. The Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite. 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 1Q% 

Q. Why was the Tuscan order selected ? 

A. It was supposed to be better adapted to the principal 
design in view, than either of the other orders. 

Q. What is that principal design ? 

A. To give an orderly and logical exhibition of the vari- 
ous leading ideas and interests which are united in the 
formation of an enlightened and Republican State. 

Q. When used for such a purpose, what is this edifice called ? 

A. The Temple of Liberty. 

Q. What figures are represented at the bases of the columns'? 

A. On the first column, Justice ; on the second, the Print- 
ing-Press ; on the third, the Steam-Engine and Electric 
Telegraph ; and on the fourth, Liberty. 

Q. What is the motto of Justice ? 

A. Fiat Jitstitia ruat ccelum. — Let justice be done, 
though heaven be destroyed. 

Q. What is the motto of the Printing-Press ? 
A. Sit Lux. — Let there be Light. 
Q. What is the motto of the Steam-Engine 1 
A. Industria vincit omnia. — Industry conquers all things. 
Q. What is the motto of Liberty ? 
A. Libert as vel mors. — Liberty or death. 
Q. When taken separately, what do these figures represent 1 
A. The ideas of Justice, Bjsowledge, Industry, and 
Liberty. 



IQQ EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. When taken in combination, what are the figures designed to show 1 
A. The progress of the human race in civilization. 
Q. What do you understand by civilization ? 
A. Those changes and states which the human race ex- 
hibit in passing from a savage to an enlightened state. 

Q. In respect to civilization, how many states does the human race ex- 
hibit? 

A. Five : namely, savage, barbarous, half-civilized, civ- 
ilized, and enlightened. 

Q. In passing from a savage to an enlightened state, what is assumed 
as the natural order of progression ? 

A. Justice precedes Liberty, or, in other words, Liberty 
emanates from Justice, and the intermediate ideas are 
Knowledge and Labor, the former represented by the Print- 
ing-Press, and the latter by the Steam-En gine. 

Q. What must be generally and practically observed by any and by 
all people who desire to possess Liberty ? 

A. They must be just, intelligent, and industrious. 
These are the indispensable conditions of liberty, and with- 
out the union of all these, no State, ancient or modern, 
ever did, or ever can, possess Liberty. 

Q. What is the first great fundamental interest of a free, enlightened, 
and republican State, and on which all the others depend ? 

A. Education. 

Q. What is Education ? 

A. Education is that process by which the powers and 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 1(J7 

faculties of an individual are duly and harmoniously devel- 
oped and disciplined; in which he acquires a thorough 
practical knowledge of individual, social, religious, and po- 
litical duties, and an ability and disposition to perform them 
all, fully, accurately, and promptly. 

Q. What are the great departments of education? 

A. Physical, Moral, Intellectual, and Special. 

Q. What is Physical Education ? 

A. It is that process in which the bodily powers are duly 
developed and disciplined, in which the individual acquires 
physical health, activity, and beauty. 

Q. What is Moral Education ? 

A. It is that process by which the moral faculties are 
duly developed and disciplined, in which the individual is 
made to perceive clearly the distinctions of right and wrong, 
good and evil, in his actions with regard to others and him- 
self, and in which he acquires the disposition to do what is 
right, and to avoid what is wrong. 

Q. What is Intellectual Education "? 

A. It is that process by which the knowing and reason- 
ing faculties of an individual are duly developed and disci- 
plined, in which he acquires a knowledge of the existence, 
relations, and reason of things. 

Q. What is Special Education ? 

A. It is that process by which an individual acquires a 
thorough practical knowledge of some department of labor. 



16g EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. What do the first three departments constitute ? 

A. General Education, which of right belongs to every 
citizen of a republican State, and for which legal and ade- 
quate provision ought to be made by the State. 

Q. What is the second great interest of an enlightened and Republican 
State? 

A. Labor. 
Q. What is Labor? 

A. It is the regular application of the human powers and 
faculties to the proper business of life. 
Q. What are the great departments of labor ? 
A. Agriculture, Commerce, Manufactures, and Professions. 
Q. What is the third great interest represented upon this Monitor ? 
A. Government. 

Q. What is government ? 

A. It is that power which regulates and governs the 
State. 

Q. Whence does the government of a Republican State derive its au- 
thority? 

A. From the consent of the people. 

Q. What are the departments of a regular government ? 

A. Legislative, Judicial, Executive, and Ministerial. 

Q. What is the office of the legislative department ? 

A. To make the law. 

Q. What is the office of the judicial department? 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 169 

A. To declare the law. 

Q. What is the office of the executive department ? 

A. To enforce the law. 

Q. What is the office of the ministerial department ? 

A. To conduct negotiations and make treaties. 

Q. What are the cardinal virtues represented upon this Monitor, and 
without any one of which any character is capitally defective ? 

A. Temperance, Prudence, Fortitude, Justice. 
Q. What does temperance do ? 
A. It restrains excess. 
Q. What does prudence do ? 
A. It guards against danger. 
Q. What does fortitude do ? 
A. It supports under pain. 
Q. What does justice do ? 

A. It makes us respect the rights of others, and protect 
our own. 

Q. What are the names of the Christian virtues inscribed on this 
Monitor ? 

A. Faith, Hope, Charity. 

Q. What is the next inscription to be noticed ? 

A. The injunction, know thyself, physically, morally, 
and intellectually. Every human being has appropriate 
duties, corresponding to all the various powers and facul- 
ties. Ordinary human capacity is equal to the knowledge 



170 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

and performance of these duties ; and fearful is the respon- 
sibility of all persons who remain in voluntary ignorance 
and neglect of them. 

Q. What is the next word inscribed upon the Monitor? 

A. Excelsior. 

Q. What is the meaning of that word? 

A. Higher. 

Q. Excelsior is the motto of what State ? 

A. New York. 

Q. Is it a good motto ? 

A. It is an admirable one, and equally well adapted for 
an individual, a family, a school, and a State. 

Q. For what purpose is Excelsior inscribed upon the Monitor ? 
A. To inculcate the duty of perpetual progress in knowl- 
edge and virtue. 

Q. Can we be always advancing and rising ? 

A. Motion is the fixed and unalterable law of our being, 
from which man can no more escape than he can escape 
death. Upward or downward every human being, society, 
and State must move ; intelligently and virtuously using all 
the powers and faculties, as it is the positive duty of all to do, 
man is continually and necessarily rising into higher and 
higher spheres of thought and action ; while by ignorance 
and vice, he is continually and necessarily sinking lower 
and lower. Throughout the Creator's works every thing 
has its appropriate sphere ; and if any being, by voluntary 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. \>J\ 

neglect of duty, abandons his natural plane, he sinks to a 
corresponding depth below. Thus the highest heaven and 
the lowest hell are the zenith and nadir of the moral world. 
Man's natural sphere is far above that of the simply animal 
race ; yet, whenever he becomes unmindful of his origin and 
duties, he necessarily sinks below the level of the brute. 
This principle explains a declaration often made by the 
great poets, namely, " A bad woman is the worst, of men ;" 
but it is equally true that a good woman is the best of 
men. Thus we see that just as our privileges are exalted 
our responsibilities are increased. 

Q. What, then, ought to be the motto of every individual, every 
family, every school, every society, and every State ? 

A. EXCELSIOR. 

Q. What is next seen on the Monitor ? 

A. The coat of arms of the United States. 

Q. What is the principal figure in it? 
A. The American Eagle. 
Q. How is the eagle represented? 
A. In a rising attitude, with outspread wings. 
Q. Why is the eagle so represented ? 

A. To indicate that the march of our country is still on- 
ward and upward. 

Q. What was the number of the States, and their population, when 
Independence was declared, in 1776? 

A. Thirteen States, and about three millions of people. 



172 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Q. What is the present number of the States, and their population ? 
A. Thirty-one States, and more than twenty-three millions 
of people. 

Q. In what time does the population of the United States double ? 
A. In about twenty-three years. 

Q. Increasing in that ratio, what will be the population of the United 
States in 1900? 

A. More than one hundred millions 

Q. What is intended by the olive-branch held in the talons of the 
eagle ? 

A. By the olive-branch the United States design to say 
to all other nations, We desire to live in peace with you, 
and we tender you the olive-branch, the symbol of peace. 

Q. What is intended by the arrows in the talons of the eagle 1 

A. By the arrows, the United States intend to say to all 
other nations, If you invade our rights, we are ready and 
prepared to defend them. 

Q. What is the motto of the United States ? 
A. E Plueebus Untjm. 

Q. What is the meaning of that motto ? 

A. From many, one, that is, one federal government, 
from many States united. 

Q. How will all true patriots and all genuine lovers of their country 
always hail the Star-spangled Banner, the glorious flag of the Republic 1 

A. In sentiment and language like that of that genuine 
patriot and eminently illustrious citizen, President Dwight : 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 173 

Columbia ! Columbia ! to glory arise ; 

The queen of the world and the child of the skies ; 

Thy genius commands thee ; with rapture behold, 

"While ages on ages thy splendors unfold. 

Thy reign is the last and the noblest of time, 

Most fruitful thy soil, most inviting thy clime ; 

Let the crimes of the East ne'er encrimson thy name, — 

Be freedom, and science, and virtue thy fame. 

To conquest and slaughter let Europe aspire 
Whelm nations in blood and wrap cities in fire ; 
Thy heroes the rights of mankind shall defend, 
And triumph pursue them, and glory attend. 
A world is thy realm : for a world be thy laws, 
Enlarged as thine empire, and just as thy cause ; 
On freedom's broad basis thy empire shall rise, 
Extend with the main, and dissolve with the skies. 

Fair Science her gates to thy sons shall unbar, 

And the east see thy morn hide the beams of her star ; 

New bards, and new sages, unrivaled, shall soar 

To fame unextinguish'd, when time is no more ; 

To thee, the last refuge of virtue design'd, 

Shall fly from all nations the best of mankind : 

Here, grateful to Heaven, with transport shall bring 

Their incense more fragrant than odors of spring. 

jSTor less shall thy fan ones to glory ascend, 
And genius and beauty in harmony blend ; 
The graces of form shall awake pure desire, " 
And the charms of the soul ever cherish the fire : 
Their sweetness unmingled, their manners refined. 
And virtue's bright image instamp'd on the mind, 
With peace and soft rapture shall teach life to glow, 
And light up a smile on the aspect of woe. 



174 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Thy fleets to all regions thy power shall display 
The nations admire, and the ocean obey ; 
Each shore to thy glory its tribute unfold, 
And the east and the south yield their spices and gold. 
As the day-spring unbounded, thy splendor shall flow, 
And earth's little kingdoms before thee shall bow, 
While the ensigns of UNION, in triumph unfurl'd, 
Hush the tumult of war, and give peace to the world. 

Q. What is the next motto upon the Monitor ? 

A. Oedek is Heaven's first law. 

Q. What is meant to be asserted by that motto ? 

A. That exact order regulates and governs every depart- 
ment of the Creator's works ; that the physical, moral, and 
intellectuals worlds are subject to precise and definite laws. 

Q. Will you name some instances in which this great truth may be 
easily perceived? 

A. The beating of the human pulse, the motion of the 
tides, and the motion of the heavenly bodies. 

Q. What important truth shall we discover by observation and reflec- 
tion upon the phenomena by which we are surrounded? 

A. That chance has no place amidst the Creator's works. 

Q. What effect ought this discovery to produce upon our lives and 
actions 1 

A. It ought to bring both into a willing and prompt obe- 
dience to our Creator's laws. 

Q. What is the highest and most striking object represented upon 
the Monitor, the first to arrest the attention, the last to leave the 
thoughts ? 



EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 175 

A. The symbol of the All-seeing Eye. 

Q. For what purpose is this symbol used 1 ? 

A. To remind us all of the fact that in thought, in word, 
and in action, we are every moment of our lives under the 
direct observation of our Creator. 

Q. Where can we find a correct description of the extent and minute- 
ness of our Creator's supervision of our lives % 

A. In the one hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm. 

Q. Will you repeat the first twenty-five lines of that Psalm ? 

A. " O Lord, thou hast searched me, 
And known me. 

Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising : 
Thou understandest my thought afar off. 
Thou compassest my path and my lying down, 
And art acquainted with all my ways. 
For there is not a word in my tongue, 
But, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. 
Thou hast beset me behind and before, 
And laid thine hand upon me. 
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me : 
It is high, I cannot attain unto it. 
Whither shall I go from thy Spirit 1 
Or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? 
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there : 
If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. 
If I take the wings of the morning, 
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea ; 



176 EDUCATIONAL CATECHISM. 

Even there shall thy hand lead me, 

And thy right hand shall hold me. 

If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover rne, 

Even the night shall be light about me. 

Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee ; 

But the night shineth as the day; 

The darkness and the light are both alike to thee." 

Q. Whenever we think on our relations to our Creator, or contem- 
plate the variety, magnificence, and wisdom of his works, what ought to 
be the sentiments and language of all his intelligent creatures ? 

A. "Be thou, O God, exalted high ; 
And as thy glory fills the sky, 
So let it be on earth displayed, 
Till thou art here, as there, obeyed." 



155 91 



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